A    FARMER'S    YEAR 


BY    THE    ^ME    AUTHOR 

CETYWAYO  AN©  HIS  WHITE  NEIGHBOUBS 
M    •   '  DA^|^.vfc  V  -^   • 

THE  WITCH'S  HEAD  •• 

KING  SOLOMON'S  MINES 

SHE 

JESS 

ALLAN  QUATEEMAIN 

MAIWA'S  EEVENGE 

MR.  MEESON'S  WILL 

COLONEL  QUARITCH,  V.O. 

CLEOPATRA 

ALLAN'S  WIFE 

BEATRICE 

ERIC  BRIGHTEYES 

NADA  THE  LILY 

MONTEZUMA'S  DAUGHTER 

THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  MIST 

JOAN  HASTE 

HEART  OF  THE  WORLD 

DOCTOR  THERNE 

SWALLOW 

{In  collaboration  with  Andrew  Lang) 

THE  WORLD'S  DESIRE 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/farmersyearbeingOOhaggrich 


A     FARMER'S     YEAR 


BEING 


HIS    COMMONPLACE    BOOK    FOR    1898 


BY 

H.   RIDER     HAGGARD 


"Who  minds  to  ciuotc 
Upon  this  note 

May  easily  find  enough : 
What  charge  and  pain, 
To  little  gain, 

Doth  follow  toiling  plough. 

"Yet  farmer  may 
Thank  God  and  say, 

For  yearly  such  good  hap, 
'  Well  fare  the  plough 
That  sends  enough 

To  stop  so  many  a  gap '  " 

Thomas  Tusser,  1558 


WJT/I    2    MAPS    AND    36     TLLUSTRATIONS 
BY    G.  LEON    LITTLE 

NEW     IMPRESSION 

LONGMANS,     GREEN,     AND     CO. 

39     PATERNOSTER     ROW,     LONDON 

NEW    YORK    AND    BOMBAY 

1899 

All    rights    reserved 


V\  Jr\A.  .V- 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

First  printed  September  1899. 
Reprinted  November  1899. 


DEDICA  TION 

MV  DEAR  HaRTCUP^ 

Had  your  mother — wJio  found  interest  in  these  pages 
and  who  to  the  end  was  fond  of  quiet  reading  about  country 
things— lived  to  see  thein  fitiished^  I  should  have  asked,  as  some 
small  token  of  their  author's  affection  and  respect,  to  be  allowed 
to  set  her  name  upon  a  book  that  tells  of  the  home  where  she  was 
born  and  the  fields  in  which  she  spent  her  distant  youth. 

But  it  cannot  be;  so  to  you,  as  a  friend  and  fello%v  inhabitant 

of  Arcady,  to  you  who  also  have  had  experience  of  the  f?-owning 

face   of  ad7'erse   agricultural  balance   sheets,  I  venture    to   offer 

them. 

Believe  me 

Ever  sincerely  yours, 

H.    RIDER  HAGGARD. 

DiTCHINGHAM  :    1899. 

Herbert  Hartcup,  Esq, 


rnfidcun^^ 


AUTHOR'S    NOTE 


Amongst  a  great  deal  of  very  kindly  criticism  that  has  reached 
him  during  their  publication  in  serial  form  (for  which  hereby  he 
tenders  his  best  thanks)  the  author  of  these  pages  has  read  one  or 
two  notices  complaining  that  they  are  not  sufficiently  technical. 
He  wishes  to  explain,  therefore,  that  he  never  intended  them  to 
be  a  manual  of  farming,  but  rather  what  their  title  implies — the 
record  of  one  year  of  the  daily  experiences  and  reflections  of  an 
individual  farmer.  With  the  many  existing  and  admirable  works 
upon  the  subject  he  has  neither  the  desire  to  enter  into  com- 
petition nor,  in  truth,  the  scientific  and  detailed  knowledge 
necessary  to  such  a  task. 

Outside  of  descriptions  of  rustic  scenes  and  events,  which  to 
some  quiet  minds  are  often  pleasing,  any  interest  that  this  book  may 
possess,  indeed,  for  the  present  or  for  future  time,  must  be  due  in  the 
main  to  the  facts  that  it  is  a  picture,  or  perhaps  a  photograph,  of  one 
facet  of  our  many-sided  modern  life,  and  that  it  mirrors  faithfully, 
if  incidentally,  the  decrepit  and  even  dangerous  state  of  the  farming 
and  attendant  industries  in  eastern  England  during  the  great  agri- 
cultural crisis  of  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century.  That 
is  to  say,  its  pages  describe  those  industries  with  their  surroundings 


viii  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

as  they  presented  themselves  in  the  year  1898  to  the  eye  and  mind 
of  a  landowner  and  farmer  of  the  smaller  and  therefore  more  repre- 
sentative sort ;  a  man  who  chanced  to  have  had  the  advantage  of 
visiting  other  countries,  and  to  the  best  of  his  ability  to  have 
observed  the  conditions,  social,  agricultural  and  political,  which 
prevail  in  them. 

How  that  crisis  will  end  it  is  not  possible  for  the  wisest 
among  us  to  guess  to-day.  Thus,  in  obedience  to  some  little 
understood  and  subtle  law  of  averages  and  economic  retaliation. 
Agriculture  the  starved  and  neglected,  may  yet  avenge  itself  upon 
the  towns  full-fed  with  cheap  and  foreign  produce,  by  swamping 
them  with  the  competition  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  hamlets  who 
troop  thence  to  find  a  higher  wage  than  *  the  land  that  dies '  can 
pay  them.  This  movement,  indeed,  perhaps  one  of  the  most 
significant  if  the  most  silent  and  unnoticed  of  our  time,  is  already 
in  rapid  progress,  and  when — should  no  unforeseen  event,  accident 
or  political  change,  such  as  the  revival  of  some  modified  form 
of  Protection,  not  expected  now,  but  still  possible  as  an  expedient 
of  despair,  occur  to  stay  it — the  exodus  is  completed,  and  the 
rural  districts  are  desolate,  then  it  may  be  asked :  Must  not  the 
numbers,  health,  and  courage  of  our  race  in  their  turn  pay  a  portion 
of  the  price  of  the  ruin  of  its  wholesome  nurseries  ? 

When  the .'  highways  were  unoccupied '  and  the  *  inhabitants  of 
the  village  ceased '  Deborah  the  Prophetess  and  a  wise  Mother  in 
Israel  did  not  think  the  omen  good. 

Perhaps  it  is  a  superstition  and  no  more ;  yet  it  seems  hard  to 
credit  that  a  country  will  remain  prosperous  for  very  long  after 
it  has  ceased  to  be  even  moderately  remunerative  to  till  any 
but   its  choicest   fields   for   food,  and  when  for    the   lack  of  a 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  ix 

reasonable  reward,  the  tillers  themselves,  a])andoning  the  free 
air  their  fathers  breathed  for  centuries,  have  swarmed  to  inhabit 
the  grim  and  sweltering  courts  of  cities.  Under  like  circumstances 
at  least  Rome  did  not  remain  prosperous. 

Heretofore  John  Bull  has  been  depicted  as  a  countryman  and 
nothing  else,  a  comparison  with  meaning.  .  If  henceforth  he  is  to 
forsake  the  soil  that  bred  him,  how  will  he  be  pictured  by  our 
children,  drawing  from  a  changed  and  shrunken  model  ? 

Indeed  to  the  millions  who  follow  it,  and  therefore  to  the  nation 
at  large,  although  few  seem  to  understand  that  this  is  so,  the 
practice  of  Agriculture— that  primaeval  occupation  and  the  cleanest 
of  them  all — means  more  than  the  growing  of  grass  and  grain. 
It  means,  among  other  things,  the  engendering  and  achieve- 
ment of  patient,  even  minds  in  sound  enduring  bodies,  gifts 
of  which,  after  the  first  generation,  the  great  towns  rob  those 
who  dwell  and  labour  in  them.  And  when  those  gifts  are  gone, 
or  greatly  lessened,  what  does  history  teach  us  of  the  fate  of  the 
peoples  who  have  lost  them  ? 

When,  too,  the  countryman  has  put  on  a  black  coat,  or,  for 
that  matter,  kept  to  his  corduroys,  what  welcome  has  the  city  he 
craves  for  him  ?  What  kind  of  places  are  these  cities  to  live  in, 
for  the  poor  ?  What  mercy  do  they  show  to  those  who  fall  sick 
or  fail  ?  Ask  the  labouring  man  who  seeks  work  after  the  cheap 
hair-dye  ceases  to  conceal  that  he  is  turned  of  fifty.  Ask  the 
clerk,  competent,  blameless  (and  married,  with  a  family),  but  on 
the  wrong  side  of  forty-five.  Ask  the  widow  derelict  and  tossing 
upon  that  bitter  sea.  They  will  reply  with  a  paraphrase  of  the 
famous  saying  of  the  Emperor  Charles  V.,  or  would  if  they  knew 
it,  'Cities  are  women,  who  reserve  their  favours  for  the  young.' 


X  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

There  the  hideous  grinding  competition  of  the  age  leaves  little 
room  for  those  from  whom  the  last  possible  ounce  of  brain  or 
body  work  can  be  no  longer  pressed.  They  go  to  the  wall,  they 
sink  to  the  slum,  and  the  Dock  gate,  and  the  House,  and  the 
hospital  ward.  I  say  that  from  these  great  towns  with  their  aggre- 
gated masses  of  mankind,  there  rises  one  eternal  wail  of  misery — 
the  hopeless  misery  that  with  all  its  drawbacks  the  country 
does  not  know,  of  those  who,  having  fallen,  are  being  trampled 
by  those  who  stand. 

Such  are  the  things  of  the  cities,  with  their  prizes  for  the  few, 
their  blanks,  their  despairs  for  the  many.  And  all  the  while 
— that  is  why  I  speak  of  them  and  their  pomps  and  poverties — 
outside  these  human  hives  lie  the  wide,  neglected  lands  of 
England,  peopled  often  enough  but  by  a  few  struggling  farmers, 
and  in  the  course  of  desertion  by  a  dwindling  handful  of  labouring 
folk.  And  yet  here  should  be — not  palaces  with  deer  parks  only, 
though  sometimes  these  have  their  uses — but  tens  and  twenties  of 
thousands  of  quiet  homes,  where,  given  easier  conditions  as  regards 
carriage,  taxation  and  markets,  families  might  live,  not  in  riches 
indeed,  but  in  ample  comfort ;  in  health  of  body  and  of  mind,  with 
pure  air,  pure  thoughts,  pure  sights.  Oh  !  who  will  so  handle 
matters  as  to  make  this  enthusiast's  dream  a  possibility,  who  will 
turn  the  people  to  the  land  again  and  thus  lessen  the  load  of  a 
nation's  sorrows  ?  And  from  the  empty  waste  of  half-tilled  acres 
floats  back  the  echo  *Who?' 

Most  of  us  pass  such  problems  with  a  shrug ;  they  do  not 
concern  us  we  think. 

It  is  an  unnatural  war  between  the  cities  and  the  land  which 
bore  and  nurtured  them,  if  that  can  be  called  a  war  where  the 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  xi 

mother  lies  prostrate  for  the  daughters  to  tread  out  her  Ufe.  When 
the  towns  are  full  what  do  they  care  to-day  if  the  fields  be  empty  ? 
'Bear  our  burdens,  feed,  educate,  give  us  the  best  of  your 
blood  and  brain— your  hungry  Realty  can  meet  the  bill.  Then 
you  may  go  starve,'  say  they;  'what  is  that  to  us  who  have 
enough?  Send  us  your  stalwart  men  and  women  : — we  will  pay 
you  back  in  sparrows  ! ' 

Indeed,  the  masses  of  the  population,  and  therefore  the  govern- 
ments who  seek  their  suffrages,  whatever  they  may  pretend,  at 
heart  interest  themselves  little  in  the  welfare  of  rural  England.  It 
is  troublesome  with  its  complaints,  half  bankrupt,  divided  by  class 
prejudice,  and  therefore  politically  impotent — let  it  take  its  chance 
— that  is  their  attitude — secret  if  not  declared.  Countries  in  China, 
Central  Africa,  anywhere,  must  be  seized  or  hypothecated  to 
provide  *  new  markets ' — even  *  at  the  cost  of  war ' — for  this  is 
fashionable  and  imperialistic,  and,  it  is  hoped,  will  bring  profit  to 
the  people  with  the  most  votes  and  influence,  the  traders  and 
dwellers  in  the  towns.  For  these,  money,  men,  everything  they 
ask  ;  but  for  the  home  earth  and  its  offspring,  small  help,  no, 
scarce  the  most  naked  justice.  'Gentlemen,  the  Cities  would 
never  stand  it,'  runs  the  accustomed  formula  of  repulse. 

'  Open  doors  abroad  '  is  the  cry — what  does  it  matter  if  the 
old-fashioned  door  at  home  is  shut,  that  door  which  in  bygone  ages 
has  so  often  stood  between  the  wolf  and  the  Englishman?  It 
matters  nothing  at  all,  is  the  answer  of  our  masters  (short-sighted 
as  some  of  us  think),  for  British-grown  products  are  no  longer  of 
great  importance  to  the  community  except,  perhaps,  to  an  enter- 
prising section  of  it,  those  of  the  meat-salesmen  and  traders  wh6 
use  the  title  as  a  veil  for  fraud. 


xii  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

In  short,  British  agriculture  on  its  appropriate  journey  to 
Jericho  resembles  that  Biblical  traveller  who  fell  among  acquisitive 
and  self-seeking  characters.  At  least  the  parallel  holds  to  a  certain 
extent.  The  Pharisee,  the  Scribe,  the  Priest  and  the  Levite — 
townsfolk  all  of  them — pass  by  with  a  jest  and  a  curse — sometimes 
they  add  a  kick — but  the  good  Samaritan  has  yet  to  appear.  When 
he  comes,  if  ever,  and  proves  successful  in  his  work  of  healing ; 
when  he  has  emptied  the  anaemic,  enervated  cities  back  on  to  the 
land  and  caused  the  vanished  yeoman  class  to  re-arise,  he  will 
be  the  greatest  man  of  his  age,  and  as  a  reward  will  earn  the 
gratitude  of  healthy  country-nursed  posterities,  who,  without  him, 
would  not  have  been. 

Where  is  he — this  son  of  consolation  ? 

But  with  reference  to  the  above  opinions  and  sundry  others 
expressed  from  time  to  time  throughout  this  book,  some  of  them 
unconventional  perhaps,  its  student  is  asked  to  remember,  in 
conclusion,  that  they  are  only  the  unimportant  though  sincerely 
held  views  of  a  private  observer  of  events  ;  intended,  it  is  true,  to 
convert  as  many  as  possible  to  their  author's  way  of  thinking,  but, 
should  they  fail  in  this,  at  least  to  give  offence  to  no  one  ;  to  be 
taken,  indeed,  at  such  value  as  the  reader  pleases,  much,  or  little, 
or  none  at  all. 

DiTCHINGIIAM  :    1899. 


CONTENTS 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  AND   THE  FARMS 

PAGE 

The  Education  of  Nature— The  small  Scale— My  Acreage— The  Moat 
Farm — Derivation  of  Bedingham— The  Procession  of  the  Past — The 
Lords  of  Bedingham— Bruce's  buried  Heart — Margery's  Love  Letter — 
The  Priory— The  Charm  of  Age— Heavy  Land— The  Fall  in  Farm 
Values— Websdill  Wood— Map  of  Moat  Farm— The  New  Pastures- 
Tenants  and  'Laying  Down' — Ditchingham — Shells  in  the  Sand — 
Outney  Common— Views— The  Vine  in  England— The  Essay  of 
Apothecary  King -The  Bath  Spring— Bungay— Sir  Hugh  Bigod— 
The  Deed  of  Roger  de  Huntingfeld— Copper-bottoming  and  the 
Black  Dog  of  Bungay  —A  Wild  Bird  Preserve — Ditchingham  Lodge — 
Mr.  Ives  and  the  Duke— Miss  Ives  and  the  Viscount— The  Sons  and 
the  Tutor— Floods  and  High  Tides — Lack  of  the  Co-operative  Spirit 

Farms  and   Stock   at   Ditchingham — Condition  of  Land  in  1889 

— Land-sucking  and  the  Land-sucker — Valuations — All  Hallows — 
The  Glebe —Baker's— Tindale  Wood- -Map  and  Details— Capital  and 
Profit  and  Loss  Accounts  -Governments  and  the  Farming  Interests — 
Borrowed  Capital — Advice  to  Investors — The  Silver  Lining      ,         •         I 

JANUARY 

A  Mad  Hare — Christmas  Weather — Ploughshares — Bungay  Compost — 
First  Calves  of  Heifers — Dyke-cleaning — An  Early  Lane — Bankrupt 
Families — A  Rent  Audit — An  Ancient  Bridle — Storage  of  Beet — 
First  Laral^s — Southdowns  and  SufFolks — Strange  Behaviour  of  Cows 
— Red  Poll  Cattle — Ditching  Fences — Young  Pastures — A  Poor  Crop 
—Ploughing  of  Barley  Lands — The  Bedingham  Steer — Showing 
Cattle— Bush  Draining — The  Lot  of  the  Agricultural  Labourer — Old 
Age  Pensions— Migration  of  the  Labourer — Going  for  a  Soldier         .       45 

FEBRUARY 

The  Wind  in  the  Pines — Candlemas  Day — Sheep  and  Heat— The 
Influence  of  Frost — First  Snow — Thrashing,  Old  and  New — Rooks 


xiv  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


and  Mawkins— Sale  of  the  Sick  Ox— The  Art  of  Ploughing—  Intelli- 
gence of  Farm  Horses — Autopsy  of  the  Sick  Ox — The  Crying  Evil  of 
the  Tied  House  Monopoly — The  Power  of  the  Brewers — Purchase  of 
Bungay  Castle  by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  —Miss  Peggotty's  Misfortune 
—The  Turkey  and  the  Cock— The  Terrier  and  the  Hen— A  Peaceful 
Scene— Rate  of  Wages— Sale  of  Bullocks—  County  Council  Election 
— Parish  Councils  a  Failure — Drilling  Barley — Marking  of  Trees — 
Growth  and  Management  of  Timber         .         .         .         .         .         .100 

MARCH  * 

Winter  at  Last— The  Fall  of  Lambs — Brushing  Pasture        •        •         .124 

APRIL 

The  Fruits  of  Free  Trade — A  Question — A  Missed  Baulk — Soil  for 
Carrots— The  Back  Lawn— The  Effect  of  Weather  on  Temperament 
A  '  Cast '  Mare  —Pond  Water  for  Drinking— The  Water  Question  in 
Villages — A  Suggested  Solution— RolHng  Heavy  Land — Felling 
Trees — Rooting — A  Stub-oak— Air-roots  on  Trees  -  Refreshing  a  . 
Pasture — Lamb  Murder — An  Easter  Vestry  Meeting  -The  Mare 
and  the  Horseman— The  Bull  and  the  Bailiff— Tail-cutting— Beet- 
drilling — The  First  Swallow— Undermanned  Farms— The  Sick 
Lambs — What  happened  before  Root  -  culture  —  Nightingales  on 
Hollow  Hill — Total  Loss  of  Lambs— Interviewing  a  Lunatic  at 
Church — Missionary  Bazaar — Superstition — Local  Race  Meetings — 
Horse-hoeing  Beans —Shifting  the  Sheep — A  Short  Notice  — Rise  in 
the  Price  of  Wheat— Service  at  Bedingham  Church — The  First 
Orchis— Estate  Repairs — Increase  of  Birds  on  Bath  Hills — A  Kicking 
Cow The  Coming  of  the  Leaf — Mice  in  Stacks— Election  Excite- 
ments—The Labourer's  Prejudices—  Money  a  Defence — The  Corrup- 
tion of  County  Constituencies — The  Worship  of  Mammon— The  Re- 
duction in  the  Tobacco  Duty— The  Grievances  of  the  Clergy — Wheat 
at  48^.  the  Quarter-  -A  Bounty  on  Wheat— The  Reign  of  King  Stork — 
Prices  of  Grain  in  1800 — Destruction  of  Young  Trees  by  Boys  — 
Hedgerow  Timber— Sensibility  to  Pain  of  Men  and  Animals— The 
Humours  of  an  Election  Meeting— Fact  zz/jr^wj  Fiction      .         ,         .     12B 

MAY 

May-Day— Stones  on  Sandy  Soil — Wheat  at  Forty-nine  Shillings  a 
Quarter — The  Price  of  Corn  and  War—  Snakes  on  the  Bath  Hills — 
The  Hare  and  the  Cobra — Rough  Jimmy — An  Egg-eating  Turkey — 
The  Margarine  Deputation — The  Gilling  of  Timber — The  Pleasures  of 


CONTENTS  XV 


Canvassing— Politics  of  the  Labourer — Heat  or  Pheasants — Courtship 
among  Turkeys -The  Last  of  the  Irish  Cattle— A  Bad  Balance  Sheet 
—The  Low  Price  of  Butter— The  Foreign  Article— A  Margarine 
Factory — Home-grown  Hams— An  Election  Tale— Snake  Bite  in 
Norfolk — Gathering  Orchids  at  Bedingham — The  Vitality  of  Seed — 
Political  Meetings — School  Board  Cases — Sir  J.  Gorst  on  Education — 
Laying  down  Grass  at  Kessingland — The  Result  of  the  Election — 
Backwardness  of  the  Season — The  End  of  Newborn  Pride— Benacre 
Broad— The  Habits  of  Peewits  —The  Closing  of  the  Broads— May 
sayings  ............     178 

JUNE 

Grass  in  Iceland—Njal's  Hall  at  BergsthorsknoU — Backwardness  of  the 
Season — Crops  and  Stock  at  Bedingham^^A  June  Frost — Preparing 
to  Steam-saw  -Sheep-shearing — The  Humour  of  Shearers — Weight 
of  Fleeces  —  Lights  and  Colours — Bees  in  the  Beans — The  Ways  of 
Swallows — Weeds  and  Carrots — The  Decay  of  Bungay  Market  —Low 
Price  of  Wool— Striking  a  Bargain— Lucky  Pigs — A  Use  for  Oak 
Butts — Steam-sawing — Spoke  Setting  -  Curlew  on  the  Common  — 
Farming  with  the  Hoe  -  Flat  Hoeing  -  Cracked  Shoulder-blades — 
A  Tale  of  the  Zulu  War — Fairy  Rings— Adventure  with  the  Porch 
Swallows — Egg-Stealing — Resale  of  the  King's  Head  Hotel  — Price 
of  Lambs— The  Uses  of  the  Dock— About  Hawks— The  Work  of  the 
late  Mrs.  Scudamore — The  Keeper  and  the  Owl — Moorhens  and  their 
Young —The  Cold  and  the  Swallows  — Sheep  Dipping— Life  on  the 
Lawn— The  Refusal  of  Christian  Burial — Cutting  the  Layer— Hen 
and  Ducklings — Swifts  on  the  Bath  Hills  —  Dragging  Twitchgrass  — 
Curiosities  of  the  Bedingham  Registers— Dan  and  Sheep  Murder— A 
Solemn  Sky— Naturalism — Wanted,  a  Kicking-strap — Allotment 
Crops  — Price  of  Garden  Stuff— Good  Blood  versus  Bad — Docks  on 
the  Marshes— Hoeing  under  Difficulties— Drying  Wet  Hay— The 
Blooming  of  Wheat—  The  First  Breath  of  Summer—  Female  Labour 
— Transplanting  Mangold—  Machine-mowing  Laid  Grass — Barleys  at 
Bedingham —The  Fly— Flowers  and  Birds  in  Websdill  Wood    .         .211 

JULY 

The  Season  Up  to  Date— The  Shed  at  Baker's— Woodton  Hall  and 
Church—The  Infamous  Dowsing  -  Forgotten  Brides— Epitaphs- 
Wealth  of  the  Georgian  Era— The  Hay  on  Nos.  5  and  11— Effect  of 
Sheeping  Pastures  -  Treading  of  Land  by  Sheep— Weaning  Lambs— 
Haysel  at  Bedingham— Kohl-rabi  and  Pigeons— A  Wicked  Pony— A 


xvi  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


PACB 


Stormy  Sunset — Hay  Heating  on  the  Stack — Committee  on  Old  Age 
Pensions— The  Benefices  Bill — Ulsters  in  July — Scene  on  the  Back 
Lawn— Feeding  Cattle  in  1557 — Two  Views  of  a  Crop— St.  Swithun's 
Day— American  Reapers — The  Cattle  and  the  Young  Willows — The 
Docks  on  the  Marsh— Sparrows  in  the  Wheat — Cutting  out  Swedes — 
Magistrates  and  Conscientious  Objectors — An  Object  Lesson — The 
Divorced  Game-cock — The  Advantages  of  Baby  Beef — The  Process 
of  Thatching — Splitting  of  Soil  by  Beet  Bulbs  —Destruction  of  Beet 
by  the  Horse  Hoe— Buying  a  Reaper — Proposed  Agreements  for 
Harvest— Boarding  out  of  London  Children— A  Rise  of  Swallows — 
Galvanised  Roofs  for  Stacks — The  Bedingham  Hay  Crop — Underbred 
Cattle— Rain  at  Last — Drilling  Maize  and  Mustard — The  Swallows 
and  their  Egg — An  Ancient  Farm  —An  Old-fashioned  Couple   .         .     255 

AUGUST 

A  Primrose  League  Fete— Sale  of  Red  Poll  Heifers — Red- weed  and 
Rabbits— Hare  and  Rabbits  Bill— Price  of  Fat  Stock  at  Harleston— 
The  Harvest  Bargain — Martha,  Jane,  and  Babette — Fight  Between 
Threshers  and  a  Whale— The  Natural  Law— Some  Examples — A  Wet 
Day— The  Dead  Foal— An  African  Snow  Scene— The  Work  of  Messrs. 
Garton — Agricultural  Distress  as  a  Subject  for  Jest — Cause  of  Death  of 
Foal— Fool's  Parsley — The  New  Ewes— The  Beginning  of  Harvest— 
The  Reaper  at  Work — Offers  for  Bedingham — Layer  in  Barley — Lady 
Farmers  of  the  Old  Sort— Cost  of  Repairs — A  Tree  Tragedy— 
Summer  Fallowing  and  *  Maffies  '—Barley  Mowing— A  Confusion  of 
Terms— A  Hawking  Owl — A  Rabbit  Hunt — Result  of  Over-manur- 
ing Wheat — Mysterious  Successes  in  Agriculture — Carting  Pease— 
Horse-bees  at  Work— Charges  for  Chemical  Analysis  —The  Humming 
of  Gnats — A  Summer  Frost — A  Large  Farm — The  Thunder-blasted 
Tree — Effects  of  Pressure  on  a  Mast — Experiences  of  Lightning  at 
Home  and  Abroad— Chicory  and  Thistle  Down— Stacking  Damp 
Oats  and  Wheat — An  Ancient  Brick — The  Past  and  the  People— The 
Instinct  of  Perpetuation— Old  Methods  of  Cottage  Building — Matted 
Corn — The  Rising  of  the  Harvest  Moon 292 

SEPTEMBER 

Bungay  Brewster  Sessions — Decrease  of  Crime — Great  Bulk  of  the 
Crops — First  Day's  Shooting — The  Heaven-sent  Bicycle — Forbidding 
Aspect  of  Ripe  Beans — Messrs.  Horton  and  Sime — The  Mettingham 
Skeleton— Seventeenth  Century  Joke— The  Abundance  of  Straw— 
The  Great  Heat— Failure  of  the  Reaper  in  Barley— The  Jeremiad  of 


CONTENTS  xvii 

PAGB 

Sir  William  Crookes — Some  Statistics  of  Wheat  Areas— Leguminous 
Crops  and  Muck  versus  Niagara  and  the  Zambesi — The  Death  of  Lord 
Winchilsea — The  Heat  and  the  Sun-spot — Produce  at  Bedingham — A 
poor  Day's  Shooting— Drought — The  Tricks  of  the  Corn  Market — 
The  End  of  Harvest— Co-operation  :  is  it  Practicable  ?— Bad  Stacking 
— Decay  of  the  Labourers'  Skill— A  Visit  to  the  Hebrides— Locomo- 
tion :  Past,  Present,  and  Future— Oban  to  Coll — Landing  at  Coll— 
The  Swede  in  Coll— Johnsonian  Wit— Farming  in  Coll— Sportsmen  ; 
and  a  Story — Bird-life  in  Coll — Seals— The  Untiring  Lees— Shooting 
and  Scruples — A  Day's  Sport  in  Coll — The  Function  of  Elymus 
A rena7'ms— The  Old  Castle— The  Tomb  of  the  McLeans— The  Sea 
Rovers'  Grave — Plover  in  a  Gale — Peat  Drains — Success  at  the 
Agricultural  Show — A  Clever  Collie — A  Snipey  Field — Church  at 
Coll  —  Superiority  of  Scotch  Preachers — Intelligence  of  their  Congre- 
gations— The  Lead  Mine — The  Benhogh  Stone — Hangman's  Hill — 
The  Bradenham  Chains — Crofters  and  Population — A  Desolate  Scene 
— '  Coll  for  my  Money ' — Drought  at  Upp  Hall — The  Water  Question 
in  Hertfordshire — True  Tale  of  a  Dmuser — Large  Fields  and  Steam 
Ploughs— Good  Stacking — Advantages  of  the  London  Market — 
Hertfordshire  Rents — Method  of  Well-Sinking — Manufacture  of  a 
Trout  Stream — Memories         ........     327 

OCTOBER 

Ditchingham  and  Drought — State  of  Crops  and  Stock — First  Thrashings 
— A  Misguided  Pheasant — Ploughing  in  the  Drought — The  Tale  of  a 
Farmer— Earlham  Hall  and  Elizabeth  Fry — Tuberculosis  and  Tuber- 
culin— Necessity  of  Dairy  Inspection — Pigeons  on  the  Lawn — The 
Lesson  of  Decay — Our  Fear  of  the  Dark — A  Crazy  Heifer — The 
Hatred  of  Hospitals — A  Broken  Link — Sale  of  two  Red  Polls — Messrs. 
Garton  and  Darwin — Autumn  on  the  Norfolk  Coast — A  Well-man- 
aged Shooting — Tale  of  a  '  Gallery ' — Beet  Lifting  and  Haling— 
Largesse — Fall  of  Wages— Grand  Juries 364 

NOVEMBER 

A  Difference  of  Opinion — The  Eternal  Round  of  Nature — Critics  on 
Galvanised  Iron — Kohl-rabi  versus  Swedes — War  and  the  Strength  of 
the  Empire — Valuation  Day — The  Woes  of  Six  Stops — Sudden  Fall 
of  Elm  Boughs — A  Change  of  Farm  Policy — The  Results  of  Bungay 
Compost — Autumn  Sunlight  and  Cloud — When  the  Strength  Fails — 
The  Beauty  of  Large  Meadows — Another  Way  of  Beet  Lifting — The 
Clergy  as  Sportsmen — Loaders — Bean  Roots — The  Risks  of  Rabbit- 
pie— Sale  of  the   Barley — The   Battle   of  Lubwa — An   Instance  of 

a 


xviii  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

I'AGE 

Physical  Endurance — The  Triumph  of  Reason  -The  End  of  the 
Battle — African  Rinderpest — Dividing  the  Spoils — Death  of  the  South- 
down Ram — A  Visit  to  the  Agricultural  Show  —Rearing  of  Prize 
Cattle — Fat  Pigs — An  Etruscan  Winner — Queensland  and  Emigration 
— Prize  Chrysanthemums — The  Poultry  Show — If  only  ! — A  Prophetic 
Passage— A  Surgical  Feat— Wild  Ostriches — The  Beet  on  Baker's  - 
Carrots  and  Carrot  Lifting — The  Last  of  the  Green  Maize — The  Uses 
of  Road-grit — Sale  of  the  Lambs — The  Criminal  Evidence  Act — 
Mustard  and  the  Sheep— The  Cunning  of  Dogs — The  End  of  Dan — 
A  Result  of  Bad  Stacking— A  Self-planted  Covert — Purchase  of  Steers 
—The  Ways  of  Moles— A  Story 37S 

DECEMBER 

An  Agricultural  Debate — The  Lack  of  Labourers — Mr.  Bagenal's  Report 
— Exodus  from  the  Land  a  National  Question — Cattle  at  Norwich 
Market — Brutality  of  Drovers — The  Cost  of  Carriage — Its  Gravity- 
Warmth  of  the  Season — The  Harleston  Auction — A  Controversy — 
Prices  at  Harleston — The  Dead  of  Winter — Ruin — The  Patience  of 
the  Afflicted  -  An  '  Old  Radical  '—Nightfall— The  Charm  of  Beding- 
hani — The  Lack  of  Bushes — A  Critic  Criticised — Raspberries  in 
December — The  Swede  Crop — A  Plethora  of  Bailiffs— Large  Ideas - 
Begging  Letters— Impostors — A  Curious  Case— Queen's  Nurses  -  Fuel 
Doles — Heckingham  Workhouse— Outdoor  KtM&iversus  the  House — 
The  Tale  of  Turk  Taylor — A  Master  Rogue — A  Fortified  Workhouse 
—  Parish  Homes  and  Unions -An  Aeriel  Fire — A  Discreet  Defendant 
—At  the  End  of  the  Fell— The  Woodcock's  Note— Ware  'Cock- 
Shooting  as  a  Sport— The  Shortest  Day — The  First  Frost— An  En- 
thusiast—The Pheasant  and  the  Cat— The  last  of  Royal  Duke— The 
Labourer  and  the  Land — Chilled  Mutton — Balance  Sheets — A  Profit 
— How  to  Succeed — ^Jeremiah  considered  by  a  Minor  Prophet  -The 
Lowest  on  Record — Roses  in  December — Kessingland  and  the  Ocean 
^The  Great  March  Gale — A  Nelson  Relic — Lady  Hamilton  and  her 
Critic— The  Nelson  Club— Pewits  and  Sunlight— The  Smell  of  the  Soil 
— Kohl-rabi  and  Swedes— A  Desolate  Scene — The  Dignity  and  Doom 
of  Labour — The  Last  Sunrise — Tithe  and  the  Parsons — The  Con- 
clusion of  the  Matter 407 

APPENDIX 

I.    The  Rural  Exodus 459 

II.     Effect  of  Foreign  Competition  on  the  British  Producer    470 

Index 473 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Bungay  Common  from  the  Vineyard  Hills  . 

Priory  Farm  and  Bedingham  Church       .        .        .     . 

The  Moat  Farm,  Bedingham 

The  Vineyard   Hills  and  Bath  House,  Ditchingham, 

IN  1738     

All  Hallows  Farm 

Lambs  in  the  Home  Farm  Orchard 

Yard  Clearing 

Bush  Draining  at  Bedingham 

Thrashing 

Ploughing  in  the  Ape  Field 

Sheep  in  the  Snow 

Sheep  and  Lambs  on  the  Back  Lawn       .        .        .     . 
Tree  Felling  on  the  Vineyard  Hills  .... 

The  Sick  Lamb 

The  PIome  Yard 

'  When  all  the  World  is  Young  ' 

Steam  Sawing 

Sheep  Dipping 

The  Mower  at  Work 

The  Hay  Field  on  Baker's 

Cattle  and  Sheep  in  Websdill  Wood  .... 


Frontispiece 

to  face  p.    4 

10 

21 

35 

56 

64 

79 

104 

no 

124 

140 

'5o 
178 

195 
221 

234 
238 
249 
263 


XX 


A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


Red-poll  Cows  on  the  Lodge  Meadows 
The  Dead  Foal         .... 

The  Reaper 

•Effort  Strenuous  and  Combined' 
The  Harvest  Moon      .... 

The  Last  Load 

Harrowing  in  Mustard  on  Stubble  . 

Lifting  Beet 

Pheasant  Shooting  in  the  Lake  Cover 
Partridge  Driving — Mark  Over  !  . 

Drilling 

By  the  Banks  of  Waveney 

Bush  Carting  at  Bedingham 

A  Burst  of  Cocks     .... 

The  Dignity  and  Doom  of  Labour    , 

St.  Mary's  Church,  Ditchingham  . 


to  face  p. 


277 

302 

307 
312 

325 
337 
365 
375 
381 
388 
401 
411 
420 
433 
453 
458 


A    FARMER'S    YEAR 


BEDINGHAM,    DITCHINGHAM 

AND    THE  FARMS 

It  is  with  very  real  humility  that  I  take  up  my  pen  to  write 
of  farming,  following  the  excellent  example  of  Thomas  Tusser, 
who,  more  than  three  hundred  years  ago,  as  I  do,  tilled  the  land 
in  Norfolk.  The  subject  is  so  vast  and  the  effort  seems  so  pre- 
sumptuous. I  propose,  however,  that  this  book  shall  be  the 
journal  of  a  farmer's  year  rather  than  a  work  about  farming, 
setting  forth  with  other  incidental  things  the  thoughts  and  reflec- 
tions that  occur  to  him,  and  what  he  sees  day  by  day  in  field  or 
wood  or  meadow,  telling  of  the  crops  and  those  who  grow  them, 
of  the  game  and  the  shooting  of  it,  of  the  ways  of  wild  creatures 
and  the  springing  of  flowers,  and  touching,  perhaps,  on  some  of 
the  thousand  trivial  matters  which  catch  the  eye  and  occupy  the 
attention  of  one  who  lives  a  good  deal  in  the  company  of  Nature, 
who  loves  it  and  tries  to  observe  it  as  best  he  may. 

I  wrote  'of  the  trivial  matters,'  but  at  times  I  think  that  these 
natural  phenomena  :  the  passage  of  the  seasons,  the  sweep  of  the 
winds  and  rain,  the  play  of  light  upon  the  common,  the  swell  and 
ebbing  of  the  flood  water,  and  all  the  familiar  wonders  which  happen 
about  us  hour  by  hour,  for  those  who  take  note  of  them  have  more 
true  significance  than  the  things  we  seek  so  eagerly  in  cities  and 
in  the  rush  of  modern  life.  There  is  no  education  like  that 
which  we  win  from  the  fellowship  of  Nature ;  nothing  else 
teaches  us  such  true  lessons,  or,  if  we  choose  to  open  our  minds 

B 


2  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

to  its  sweet  influence,  exercises  so  deep  an  effect  iipon  our  inner 
selves— an  effect  that  is  good  to  its  last  grain.  I  say  'if  we 
choose,'  for  there  are  many  in  all  classes  of  life  who  pass  their 
days  in  the  fields  and  yet  never  open  their  minds.  Of  the  inner 
mystery  and  meaning  of  things  they  see  nothing;  they  do  not  under- 
stand that  to  win  her  favours  Nature  is  a  mistress  who  must  be 
worshipped  with  the  spirit  as  well  as  admired  with  the  eyes.  Such 
folk  miss  much. 

Let  the  reader  of  utilitarian  mind  have  patience,  however,  for 
there  will  be  a  practical  side  to  this  book.  I  am  a  farmer,  and 
engaged  in  a  desperate  endeavour  to  make  my  farming  pay. 
Perhaps  the  chronicle  of  my  struggles  may  have  interest  for 
others  so  situated;  may  at  least — if  one  man's  experience  in 
agriculture  or  anything  else  is  ever  of  any  use  to  others — teach  them 
what  to  avoid.  To  prove  that  I  set  out  the  exact  truth,  moreover, 
at  the  end  of  this  chapter  I  shall  print,  amongst  other  things,  a 
statement  of  the  financial  conditions  under  which  my  farming  is 
carried  on,  and  of  its  pecuniary  results  up  to  the  present  time. 

One  more  word  of  warning.  This  is  not  to  be  the  history  of 
the  working  of  a  great  farm  run  by  some  rich  man  regardless  of 
expense,  with  model  buildings,  model  machinery,  and  the  rest. 

On  the  contrary,  here  is  but  a  modest  place,  modestly,  if 
sufficiently,  furnished  with  the  necessary  buildings,  capital, 
instruments,  and  labour.  Possibly  for  this  very  reason  the  details 
connected  with  it  may  prove  of  the  more  value  to  readers 
interested  in  the  subject.  After  all,  few  people  have  to  do  with 
large  and  perfectly  equipped  farms,  whereas  many — to  their  sorrow 
• — are  weighted  with  small  holdings  thrown  on  their  hands  in 
wretched  order.  How  often  indeed  has  a  reader  been  annoyed  after 
purchasing  a  manual  on  some  sport  or  amusement  in  which  he  is 
interested— let  us  say  on  shooting — to  find  that,  to  all  appearance, 
it  has  been  written  by  a  millionaire  for  millionaires.  Very  few 
people  can  base  their  estimate  of  sport  on  five  or  eight  thousand 
acres  of  the  best  game  country  in  England,  or  look  on  loo  brace 
of  driven  partridge  as  a  small  day.     Something  humbler  in  scale 


BEDINGHAM.  DITCHJNGHAM  6-  THE  FARMS    3 

would  be  more  useful  to  them.  Perhaps  the  same  consideration 
applies  to  a  book  dealing  with  the  land. 

In  all  I  am  now  farming  365  acres  of  land  or  thereabouts,  of 
which  261  are  situated  in  this  parish  of  Ditchingham,  and  104  in 
the  parish  of  Bedingham,  five  miles  away.  Of  the  261  acres  at 
Ditchingham  I  hire  about  no  acres,  and  am  therefore,  as  regards 
this  proportion  of  the  land,  a  tenant  farmer  holding  under  three 
separate  landlords.  This  may  seem  a  large  amount  of  land  to 
hire,  being  considerably  more  than  a  third  of  the  total  acreage, 
but  the  explanation  is  twofold.  First,  these  pieces  of  land  cut 
into  my  own  holding ;  and,  secondly,  as  I  find  from  experience 
that  it  is  more  economical  to  farm  on  a  considerable  scale  thart  on 
a  small  one,  it  suited  my  purpose  to  take  these  acres  as  they  came 
into  the  market,  rather  than  to  disturb  old  tenants  on  other  land 
in  my  own  possession  in  the  parish. 

This  no  acres  is  rented,  some  of  it  at  a  high  price  (for  the 
times),  and  some  moderately,  the  net  total  payable  being 
in/.  loj-.,  or  about  i/.  an  acre.  But  on  the  turnover  of  a  farm 
of  this  size  even  in/,  for  rent  makes  no  enormous  figure.  The 
wise  people  who  are  continually  shouting  into  our  ears  that  the 
real  remedy  for  agricultural  depression  is  a  further  reduction  of 
rents  are  indeed  very  much  mistaken.  Let  farming  become  once 
more  a  fairly  remunerative  business,  and  we  farmers  shall  not 
grumble  at  a  reasonable  rent ;  but  let  it  remain  in  the  condition  in 
which  it  has  been  for  the  last  ten  years,  and,  save  in  very  excep- 
tional instances,  the  abolition  of  rent  altogether  would  not  enable 
it  to  pay  a  living  profit. 

At  Bedingham  none  of  the  land  is  hired,  the  farm,  which 
belongs  to  this  estate,  having  been  thrown  upon  my  hands  four 
years  ago.  I  might  have  relet  it,  but  found  out  in  time  that  the 
applicant's  capital  was  small  indeed.  As,  but  a  short  while  before, 
I  had  experienced  the  joys  of  such  a  tenant  in  another  farm — at  an 
expense  to  myself  of  a  loss  of  several  hundred  pounds— I  declined 
the  offer,  and  took  over  the  land.  Perhaps  it  will  be  more  con- 
venient if  I  describe  this  place  first. 

B2 


4  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

The  name  of  it  is  the  Moat  Farm,  but  whether  it  is  so  called 
from  a  large  pond  in  the  meadow  in  front  of  the  house,  or  because 
it  was  once  a  '  Mote '  or  meeting  place,  a  gathering-ground  perhaps 
of  long-forgotten  parish  councils,  is  more  than  I  can  say.  The 
origin  of  the  name  of  the  village  itself — Bedingham — gives  food  for 
conjecture.  Blomefield  informs  us  that  it  is  derived  from  a  rivulet 
in  Sussex  called  the  Beding  ;  but  why  a  village  in  Norfolk  should 
take  its  title  from  a  streamlef  in  Sussex  he  does  not  explain.  If 
he  be  right,  the  christening  took  place  some  time  ago,  for  the 
*town'  seems  to  have  been  called  Bedingham  in  the  days  of 
William  the  Conqueror,  who  owned  the  greater  part  of  it,  which 
was  in  the  charge  of  his  steward,  one  Godric.  Quite  close  also, 
in  the  neighbouring  village  of  Hedenham,  the  Romans  had  a  brick 
kiln ;  there  is  one  there  still,  so  probably  they  were  acquainted 
with  Bedingham. 

There  are  few  things  which  give  rise  to  reflections  more  melan- 
choly—since the  fate  of  those  bygone  worthies  who  owned  it  is 
the  same  that  awaits  us  all— than  the  contemplation  of  any  piece  of 
ground  to  which  we  chance  to  be  attached  and  to  see  and  walk 
upon  day  by  day.  We  may  know  its  recent  history,  traditions 
may  even  survive  of  old  So-and-so,  and  how  he  farmed  'sixty 
years  gone  ' ;  but  before  that !  How  many  generations  of  them 
have  taken  exactly  the  same  interest  in  those  identical  fields? 
How  many  dead  eyes  week  by  week,  as  ours  do,  have  dwelt  upon  the 
swell  of  yonder  rise,  or  the  dip  of  the  little  valley  ?  How  many 
dead  hands  have  tilled  that  fallow,  or  mown  that  pasture  ? 

Look  at  the  long  procession  of  them— savages  herding  battle 
and  hogs,  scores  of  generations  of  these  ;  slaves  under  the  charge  of 
a  Roman  overseer ;  Saxons,  Danes,  Normans,  monks,  EngUsh  of  all 
the  dynasties,  our  immediate  predecessors,  and,  last  of  all,  ourselves. 

And  the  land  itself  ?  Scarcely  changed,  as  I  believe.  Any  por- 
tion of  it  that  chanced  to  be  forest  in  his  day  excepted,  the  Saxon 
Thane,  Hagan,  who  farmed  it  in  the  time  of  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor, would  know  it  again  at  once,  for  every  little  rise  and  fall  of 
it  is  the  same  as  in  his  generation  ;  the  streamlet  is  the  same,  the 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  ^  THE  FARMS    5 

roads  follow  precisely  the  same  winds  and  turns,  taking  the  course 
dictated  to  them  in  the  beginning  by  the  occurrence  of  boggy  land 
or  the  presence  of  groves  of  ancient  oaks.  The  land  is  more  generally 
enclosed,  and  the  trees  upon  it  would  seem  to  have  moved  them- 
selves into  unfamiliar  places — these  would  be  the  principal  dif- 
ferences in  his  eyes.  But  when  it  came  to  the  question  of  soil, 
probably  he  could  tell  us  the  nature  of  almost  every  acre.  Yonder 
it  would  never  do  to  plough  after  wet  lest  it  should  '  kill '  the  land. 
That  piece  is  '  scaldy  '  because  the  gravel  comes  near  to  the  top 
earth,  and  corn  would  not  'cast '  on  it  in  a  dry  season.  And  so  forth. 
Doubtless  his  information  would  be  correct  to  the  letter,  except 
where  some  swamps  are  concerned,  for  in  this  part  of  Norfolk 
they  have  all  been  drained.  Things  move  slowly  in  our  temperate 
clime,  and  more  than  a  thousand  years  are  needful  to  alter  even 
the  character  of  the  soil  of  a  field — or  so  I  believe. 

Well,  Hagan  the  Thane  has  gone  to  his  rest  in  the  churchyard 
yonder,  whither  since  his  day,  although  the  population  of  the  hamlet 
is  small,  he  must  have  been  followed  by  over  six  thousand  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Bedingham.  They  are  all  forgotten,  every  man  of 
them,  but  the  names  of  the  more  recent  generations  are  recorded 
in  registers  which  few  ever  open,  though  about  these  I  shall  have 
a  word  or  two  to  say.  Yet  some  of  them  were  people  of  impor- 
tance in  their  day.  For  instance,  there  were  the  de  Gournays  in  the 
time  of  Henry  II.  Nicholas  de  Stutvile,  who  married  Gunnora, 
an  heiress  of  the  de  Gournays,  lost  his  lands  in  Bedingham  for 
rebellion  against  King  John.  The  wrath  of  that  monarch  was  not 
very  long-lived,  however,  for  in  1206  he  restored  to  Nicholas  the 
son  that  which  he  had  taken  from  Nicholas  the  father.  Then  there 
were  Bigods  and  de  Udedales,  and  Gostlings  and  Sheltons,  one 
of  whom,  by  the  way,  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  conveyed  an 
estate  here  to  Thomas  Hauchet,  of  Upp  Hall,  Braughing,  Herts, 
now  the  property  of  the  writer's  friend,  Mr.  Charles  Longman,  the 
publisher  of  this  book.  The  Stanhow  family  were  here  also  for 
some  two  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Then  came  the  Stones,  one  of 
whom  married  Catherine,  the  heiress  of  the  Stanhows,  who  dwelt 


(5  A   FARMER'S  YEAR 

on  at  Bedingham  Hall  till  within  the  memory  of  folk  still  alive.  At 
last  they  died  out,  and  the  old  Hall  was  pulled  down,  and  with  it 
departed  such  glory  as  Bedingham  possessed,  for  now,  with  the 
exception  of  that  of  the  clergyman  (who  is  expected  to  exist  on 
about  140/.  a  year),  no  gentle  family  lives  in  the  parish. 

Of  all  these  faint  and  far-off  ghosts  that  once  were  men  and 
women  (and  owned  or  cultivated  my  farm)  the  one  who  interests 
me  most  is  that  member  of  the  Bruce  or  Brews  family  who  died 
*  beyond  sea '  and  caused  his  heart  to  be  sent  back  to  Bedingham 
for  burial.  The  heart  still  lies  in  the  chancel,  enclosed,  so  says 
tradition,  in  a  casket  of  silver.  Tradition  tells  us  also  that  its 
owner  fell  in  the  Crusades,  but  I  can  find  no  confirmation  of  the 
report.  Perhaps  the  story  has  become  mixed  with  that  of  the 
heart  of  a  more  famous  Bruce,  and  its  adventures  in  the  Crusades. 

There  was  another  Brews  also,  the  merry  Margery,  who  writes 
from  Topcroft  by  Bedingham  in  February  1477  to  her  '  Voluntyn' 
(valentine),  John  Paston  {see  the  Paston  Letters).  '  No  more  to 
yowe  at  this  tyme,  but  the  Holy  Trinitie  have  yowe  in  kepyng. 
And  I  besech  yowe  that  this  bill  be  not  seyn  of  none  erthely 
creatur  save  only  your  selffe.  And  thys  letter  was  indyte  at 
Topcroft  with  full  hevy  herte.  By  your  own  Margery  Brews.' 

Poor  dead  Margery  !  she  did  not  anticipate  the  art  of  printing 
or  foreknow  the  eyes  that  would  read  her  sweet  love-laden  valentine. 

There  was  a  priory  at  Bedingham,  for  Sir  John  de  Udedale 
granted  the  manor  to  the  Canons  of  Walsingham  in  131 8.  So 
the  priory  must  have  existed  for  something  more  than  two 
centuries  when  Henry  VHI.  seized  it  and  gave  it  to  one 
Thomas  Gawdy.  All  that  is  left  of  the  monks  to-day  is  an  ancient 
building,  said  to  have  been  part  of  the  monastery,  which  is  now 
used  as  a  farmhouse.  It  stands  close  to  the  church,  a  long  and 
beautiful  building,  which  used  to  be  called  the  *  Mother '  church 
of  this  district,  probably  built,  or  rebuilt,  by  the  monks.  If  so,  this 
is  the  only  monument  they  have  left  behind  them ;  but  I  often 
wonder  what  their  life  was  like  in  the  grey  old  priory,  and,  when 
they  were  not  praying  in  the  church,  what  they  did  with  their  time 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  &>  THE  FARMS    7 

during  their  long  peaceful  day  of  more  than  two  centuries.  I  am 
not  aware  that  the  commissioners  reported  their  establishment  for 
riotous  or  unseemly  practices ;  indeed  it  seems  difficult  to  connect 
such  fast  doings  with  Bedingham  or  its  inhabitants,  clerical  or  lay, 
although  this  may  be  mere  Arcadian  prejudice.  Therefore,  as  there 
is  no  fishing  in  the  neighbourhood,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  old  monks  must  have  been  great  farmers,  and  probably 
very  good  ones  according  to  their  lights  and  opportunities. 

I  make  no  excuse  for  these  remarks  on  the  history  of  Beding- 
ham, introduced  into  a  description  of  a  farm  in  the  parish,  since  I 
believe  that  most  readers  will  agree  with  me  that  there  is  some- 
thing almost  fascinating  about  such  records  and  the  speculations 
to  which  they  give  rise.  The  crown  and  charm  of  rural  England 
is  its  antiquity.  Our  American  relations  may  bring  these  villages 
to  poverty  by  swamping  the  markets  and  thus  destroying  our 
agricultural  prosperity,  but  in  a  certain  sense  we  are  avenged 
upon  them.  I  wonder  what  they  would  give  for  a  few  hamlets 
with  a  pedigree  like  that  of  Bedingham.  Here  such  places  and 
their  pasts  are  quite  unnoticed ;  yonder,  where  they  have  more 
taste  and  sympathy  for  what  is  bygone,  they  would  be  prized 
indeed.  But  so  it  is.  If,  like  the  present  writer,  a  man  has 
lived  in  new  countries,  and  been  more  than  satisfied  with  their 
unshaped  crudity,  he  turns  home  again  with  a  quickened  appetite 
for  things  hoar  with  age,  and  with  a  gathered  reverence  towards 
that  which  has  been  hallowed  by  the  custom  of  generations. 
Indeed  the  lives  of  us  individuals  are  so  short  that  we  learn  to  take 
a  kind  of  comfort  in  the  contemplation  of  communities  linked 
together  from  century  to  century  by  an  unbroken  bond  of  blood, 
and  moulded  to  a  fixed  type  of  character  by  surrv^undings  and  daily 
occupations  which  have  scarcely  varied  since  the  days  of  Harold. 
The  Moat  Farm  at  Bedingham  is  a  heavy-land  farm,  in  fact  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  a  heavier.  Walk  over  it  in  wet  weather, 
and  five  minutes  of  hard  work  will  scarcely  clean  your  boots,  so 
*  loving '  is  the  country  ;  walk  over  it  in  dry  before  the  frost  has 
broken  up  the  clods  in  winter,  or  rain  has  slaked  them  in  summer, 


8  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

and  you  must  be  careful  lest  you  twist  your  ankle.  But  heavy 
land,  unless  it  be  very  'thin  in  the  skin,'  does  not  necessarily 
mean  bad  land.  Indeed,  if  I  were  given  the  choice,  I  would  more 
lightly  undertake  a  heavy-land  farm  in  good  order  than  one 
liable  to  '  scald,'  which  refuses  to  produce  a  crop  of  hay  or  roots 
unless  deluged  day  by  day  with  rain.  Perhaps,  however,  this 
conviction  owes  something  to  the  three  years  of  drought  which  we 
have  just  experienced.  The  clay  of  Bedingham  laughs  at  drought; 
as  an  old  fellow  there  said  to  me,  '  It  didn't  never  take  no  harm 
from  it  since  Adam,'  and  on  it  during  these  dry  years  I  have  grown 
some  good  barleys.  For  example,  my  Bedingham  barley  of  1896 
fetched  the  highest  price  of  any  produced  in  this  district  that  year. 

Several  causes  have  combined  to  give  the  stiff  soils  so  bad  a 
name,  and  to  knock  down  the  value  of  such  land  in  East  Anglia  to 
about  10/.  the  acre.  First  and  foremost  among  these  is  the  ruinous 
cheapness  of  corn.  The  heavy  lands  are  corn-growing  lands,  and 
if  it  no  longer  pays  to  grow  the  corn  they  are  supposed  to  be  of  no 
further  value.  I  say  '  supposed  to  be,'  for  reasons  which  I  will 
give  presently.  Then  they  are  expensive  to  stock  and  work 
properly ;  the  farmer  must  have  good  horses  and  enough  of  them, 
the  draining  must  be  attended  to  in  its  proper  rotation,  and  so 
forth.  Lastly,  when  once  they  are  thoroughly  foul  and  neglected 
it  is  a  long  and  costly  business  to  bring  them  straight  again.  When 
a  ditch  has  not  been  cleaned,  or  a  pond  *fyed,'  or  a  field  drained, 
or  a  hedge  cut  on  such  a  farm  for  years,  as  is  often  the  case,  it  is 
no  child's  task  to  overtake  the  work ;  indeed,  it  cannot  be  done, 
without  great  expense  for  labour,  under  a  period  of  time,  probably 
two  four-year  shifts.  This  state  of  affairs  means,  moreover,  that 
the  land  is  foul  with  docks  and  other  weeds,  and  to  clean  it  is  a 
labour  of  Hercules.  Consequently,  a  heavy-land  farm  in  this  con- 
dition, or  anything  approaching  to  it,  is  practically  valueless  to  a 
yearly  tenant,  as  it  would  take  him  several  years  to  '  right-side '  it, 
during  which  time,  unless  he  chanced  to  be  a  man  of  substance, 
probably  he  would  starve. 

Here  is  an  instance  of  the  extraordinary  drop  in  the  value  of 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  &>  THE  FARMS    9 

heavy  land  in  this  neighbourhood.  Major  John  Margitson,  my 
father-in-law,  and  predecessor  in  this  property,  about  thirty-five 
years  ago  purchased  a  farm  of  195  acres  of  heavy  land  for  a  sum 
of  6,000/.,  or  including  certain  necessary  improvements  6,500/.  In 
1868  this  farm  was  let  for  252/.,  the  tenant  paying  the  tithe  of  35/. 
In  1 88 1  the  rent  had  fallen  to  200/.  Then  came  the  bad  seasons, 
indeed  they  had  already  begun  with  the  fearful  year  of  1879,  and 
the  tenant,  a  worthy  man  of  the  old  school  who  felt  his  age,  had 
neither  the  energy  nor  the  capital  to  stand  up  against  them.  He 
drifted  into  insolvency,  and  the  farm  was  relet  to  another  tenant 
at  a  greatly  reduced  rent.  This  gentleman,  although  it  was  not 
discovered  at  the  time,  was  already  practically  insolvent.  In  the 
end  he  went  bankrupt  also,  and  the  estate  lost  several  hundred 
pounds.  Now  I  was  anxious  to  take  the  farm  in  hand,  as  at  the 
tinie  I  chanced  to  be  able  to  command  the  2,000/.  capital  which 
would  have  been  necessary  to  the  venture.  But  my  late  friend  and 
agent,  Mr.  William  Simpson,  the  well-known  and  respected  Norfolk 
auctioneer  and  valuer,  dissuaded  me  from  that  course.  By  this 
time,  like  everybody  else,  he  was  thoroughly  frightened  at  the 
outlook  for  farming,  and  assured  me  that  I  should  certainly  lose 
1,000/.  over  the  transaction.  I  bowed  to  his  judgment  and 
experience  and  the  farm  was  relet,  this  time  for  50/.  a  year — as  he 
could  only  value  the  land  at  8/.  the  acre  I  declined  to  go  further 
and  attempt  to  sell  it.  Out  of  this  magnificent  revenue  I  am 
expected  to  repair  the  house  and  extensive  buildings,  to  bear  the 
ordinary  landlord's  charges,  to  find  the  seed  for  laying  down 
permanent  pastures,  and  pay  the  tithe,  which  now,  I  believe, 
has  declined  to  about  25/.,  or  half  the  gross  rental.  Also,  I  am 
called  upon  for  subscriptions  to  local  charities.  By  the  way,  can 
it  ever  have  been  contemplated  that  the  system  of  tithe  should 
work  thus?  When  the  farm  let  for  252/.  the  tithe  seems  to  have 
been  about  35/. ;  now,  when  the  rent  is  50/.  the  tithe  is  about  25/., 
a  large  proportion — to  the  profits  I  was  about  to  write,  but,  of 
course,  there  are  none.  To  own  that  farm  costs  a  considerable 
sum  out  of  pocket  annually. 


t€>  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

To  return  to  the  Moat  Farm  at  Bedingham.  It  is  very  stiff; 
although  not  so  stiff  as  some  in  this  -neighbourhood,  that  is,  if 
common  repute  and  nomenclature  go  for  anything.  '  Muck  and 
Misery'  one  is  called,  and  another  'Stark-Naked  Farm.'  They 
are  heavy  land  both  of  them.  For  a  good  many  years  before  I 
began  to  work  it  the  land  had  been  farmed  'off-hand,'  that  is  to 
say,  the  tenant  did  not  live  on  the  farm,  but  put  in  a  working 
bailiff.  The  result  of  this  kind  of  arrangement  is  generally 
apparent  in  the  outward  aspect  of  the  homestead.  When  the 
farmer  lives  on  a  place  himself,  in  most  cases  it  is  kept  tidy.  His 
wife  or  daughters  look  to  the  flowers ;  one  of  them  is  sure  to  grow  a 
few  roses,  wallflowers,  dahlias,  or  hollyhocks.  Vegetables  for  the 
family  use  are  cultivated  also,  either  by  the  tenant  himself, 
though  farmers  are  generally  very  bad  gardeners,  or  by  one  of  his 
men  in  their  spare  time,  when  the  weather  is  unsuitable  for 
other  jobs.  Often  enough,  however,  the  labourer  in  charge  of  an 
'  off-hand '  farm  takes  little  interest  in  such  matters.  The  garden 
grows  up,  the  apple  trees  are  unpruned,  and  a  briar  bush  or  two  alone 
remain  to  show  where  once  the  roses  were  which  they  have  choked. 

Such  was  the  case  at  Bedingham.  The  buildings,,  moreover, 
were  dilapidated  and  the  yards  like  pit-holes.  Year  by  year  the 
litter  had  been  carted  out  of  them,  together  with  a  portion  of  the 
bed  on  which  it  lay;  but  rarely,  indeed,  if  ever,  were  any  stones 
put., in  to  make  them  good.  In  these  clay  lands  stones  are 
scarce.  A  certain  number  of  flints  are  ploughed  up  and  gathered 
on  the  layers,  but  these  are  used  for  more  urgent  repairs,  such  as 
that  of  the  round  where  the  horse  walks  when  at  work  on  the 
chafflng-machine,  or  to  mend  the  gate  openings.  The  yards  are 
left  to  take  their  chance,  and  the  muck  in  them  to  soak  in  a  pond 
of  water  till  it  could  better  be  described  as  dirty  straw  than  good 
manure. 

Thus  too  often  it  is  with  everything  ;  so  long  as  it  will  possibly 
serve  the  thing  is  neglected,  unless  indeed  it  is  some  damage  that  the 
landlord  can  be  forced  or  worried  into  repairing.  Especially  is  this 
the  case  with  gates,  that  on  such  a  farm  are  often  represented  by  a 


BEDINGHAM,  DI2XHINGHAM  ^  THE  FARMS    i  i 

rickety  ledge  or  two,  and  a  broken  back  leaning  against  a  post  so 
rotten  that  a  strong  man  could  push  it  over,  or,  rather,  break  it  just 
where  it  enters  the  ground.  Here  it  is  that  a  post  gets  the  '  wets 
and  drys,'  and  here  the  best  of  them  go  in  time.  Even  if  a  tenant 
is  bound  by  lease  to  leave  the*  gates  in  good  repair  the  case  is 
much  the  same.  This  was  so  at  Bedingham,  and  I  remember  when 
it  came  '  in  hand '  seeing  a  carpenter  engaged  in  tinkering  at  the 
gates.  Yet  since  I  have  had  it  I  have  been  obliged  to  renew  some 
of  them  altogether,  and  many  others  are  worn  out.  Another  thing 
much  neglected  by  most  tenants  of  late  years  is  the  periodical 
'fying,'  or  cleaning  out  of  pit-holes,  and  even  of  large  ditches.  If 
the  pits  are  not  cleaned  animals  feeding  in  the  fields  are  liable  to 
get  'laid,'  or  bogged,  but  their  owners  take  the  risk  of  that  rather 
than  go  to  the  expense  of  fying,  although  in  truth  the  mud  thrown 
from  the  ponds  almost  repays  this  cost,  since  it  is  most  valuable  for 
the  refreshing  of  pastures.  Again,  if  the  ditches  are  neglected  on 
heavy  land,  the  mouths  of  the  drains  get  blocked  and  the  soil 
becomes  sour  and  sodden  with  water,  after  which  its  owner  will 
soon  hear  that  '  the  mucky  old  land  won't  grow  northin'  at  all,  not 
enough  to  feed  a  cow  on  ten  acres  of  it,'  or  something  equally 
depressing.  Since  I  took  over  the  Moat  Farm  in  1894  I  have 
*  fyed '  every  pond  upon  it.  Out  of  one  of  them,  that  in  front  of 
the  homestead,  there  were  drawn  more  than  two  hundred  loads  of 
mud.  According  to  the  testimony  of  the  '  oldest  inhabitant '  it  had 
not  been  touched  for  over  fifty  years. 

Still,  on  the  whole,  the  Bedingham  farm  was  not  in  such  bad 
order  when  I  took  charge  of  it,  as  may  be  judged  by  the  fact  that 
one  field  proved  clean  enough  to  lay  down  in  pasture.  It  used  to 
be  very  well  farmed  by  a  worthy  man  who  understood  heavy  soil. 
He  died  of  consumption  ;  and,  after  his  death,  his  executors  carried 
on  his  business,  but  the  land  was  not  quite  so  well  done  by.  Still, 
if  judged  by  the  state  of  the  larger  farm  at  Ditchingham,  of  which 
I  shall  have  to  speak  presently,  its  condition  was  good — a  com- 
parative term,  however. 

The  Moat  Farm,  as  may  be  seen   from   the  map  upon  the 


12  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

opposite  page,  has  in  all  an  area  of  about  104  acres,  whereof 
twenty-five  acres  or  thereabouts  were  permanent  pasture  in  1894. 
Of  this  grass,  however,  fourteen  acres  (No.  20  in  the  accompanying 
map)  is  land  cleared  by  the  stubbing  up  of  a  covert  known  as 
Websdill  Wood.  This  appears  to  have  been  done  within  the  last 
fifty  years,  for  old  men  still  living  in  the  parish  remember  it,  but  the 
ground  was  left  thickly  covered  with  oaks,  rather  small  in  size, 
owing  to  the  poverty  of  the  sub-soil.  Indeed,  I  am  told  that  they 
have  scarcely  altered  in  girth  for  a  generation,  although  their  timber 
is  of  good  quality.  Of  these  oaks  I  have  cut  down  about  seventy 
within  the  last  few  years,  and  used  them  in  farm  repairs.  Under- 
neath them  many  brambles  still  cumber  the  soil  in  little  clumps. 
These  are  now  removed  annually,  and  the  surface-drains  having 
been  reopened,  the  pasture  is  improving,  for  last  year  a  consider- 
able head  of  young  things,  about  ten  in  all,  together  with  two  colts, 
found  a  living  on  this  fourteen  acres  during  the  summer  months. 
That  it  cannot  have  been  a  bad  one  was  evident  from  their  con- 
dition in  the  autumn,  the  colts  especially  showing  as  fat  as  butter. 

The  rest  of  the  old  pasture  is  good,  and  produces  excellent  hay. 
All  the  land  round  the  wood  is  heavy,  cold,  and  very  flat,  especially 
the  pieces  numbered  respectively  19,  15,  16,  21,  and  22.  When 
negotiations  were  going  on  for  the  reletting  of  this  farm,  the  tenant 
would  offer  no  rent  at  all  for  them,  alleging  them  to  be  worthless. 
I  was  of  a  different  opinion ;  and  I  hope  to  be  able  to  bring  the 
reader  to  my  way  of  thinking.  The  land,  it  is  true,  had  many 
disadvantages.  Indeed,  however  carefully  it  was  cultivated,  it  is 
doubtful  whether  one  root  crop  in  four,  on  the  pieces  in  question, 
would  repay  the  trouble  and  expense  of  tillage.  Either  the 
roots  suffered  from  a  '  wet  stunt '  in  rainy  weather,  or  the  soil  would 
'  set  hard,'  or,  for  some  reason  unexplained,  the  seedlings  received 
a  *  check '  from  which  they  never  could  recover.  In  good  seasons, 
which  at  Bedingham  mean  very  dry  seasons,  corn  did  fairly  upon 
these  lands,  but  the  crop  could  scarcely  be  ensured. 

Now,  from  the  first,  I  had  seen  that  if  a  farm  of  this  character 
is  to  be  made  to  pay  in  these  days,  it  would  be  necessary  to  keep 


BEDINGTIAM,  DITCHINGHAM  ^  THE  FAltMS    13 


Pastures 

Arable 

Present  Crop  (1898) 

Last  Year's  Crop  (1897) 

1.     1-507 

5.    3793 

Barley 

Tares  and  Kohlrabi 

2.     1-866 

6.    2-865 

Wheat 

Beans 

3.     1-348 

8.    3-560 

Wheat 

Pease 

4.     1*943 

9.    6-384 

Wheat 

Clover  Layer 

7.    2-101 

12.    5-880 

Barley 

Swedes 

10.    23781 

13.    5-862 

Pease  and  Oats 

Barley 

11.    8-777 

U.    5-269 

Beans 

Barley 

l6:ls-93^^ 

3;^;|  8-918 

Root 
Swedes  and  Kohlrabi 

Barley 
Wheat 

19.    7-637^ 

21.    4-585 

Barley  and   Perma- 

nent Pasture 

Roots  and  Cabbage 

20.  14-3815 

22.    5-913 

Root 

Barley 

50-869 

53-029 

Laid  last  year. 


Total  Acreage 
Si'bT   g;L11  Homestead 


103-898 

New  pasture. 


Websdill  Wood  rough  pasture, 


M 


A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


the  labour  bill  as  low  as  possible,  and  to  reduce  the  number 
of  horses  necessary  to  its  working,  which,  by  the  way,  if  I 
remember  right,  was  four  for  the  first  two  years.  To  do  this,  it 
was  essential  that  a  good  deal  more  land  should  go  down  to 
grass,  and  for  grass  accordingly  I  set  apart  pieces  numbered 
lo,  19,  15,  16,  21,  and  22.  As  might  be  expected,  my  idea  of 
laying  land  of  this  character  down  to  grass  at  all  met  with  con- 
siderable criticism.  The  late  tenant  had  informed  me,  when  I 
made  the  suggestion  to  him,  that  it  was  futile,  as  the  grass  would 
never  stand  more  than  three  years ;  and  other  authorities  were 
not  much  more  encouraging.  It  was  at  this  juncture  that  I  happened 
to  read  in  the  Times  a  letter  from  Mr.  Elliot,  of  Clifton  Park, 
describing  his  method  of  dealing  with  bad  thin-skinned  lands  which 
he  wished  to  lay  down,  by  mixing  with  the  permanent  grass  seeds  a 
proportion  of  deep-rooting  herbs — weeds,  some  would  call  them — 
such  as  chicory,  burnet,  lucerne,  and  yarrow,  the  object  being  to 
pierce  the  hard  pan  of  clay  sub-soil  with  their  roots,  and  let  the 
air  down  into  it  to  do  its  fertiHsing  work.  This  experiment,  after 
some  correspondence  with  Mr.  Elliot,  who  most  kindly  replied  to 
my  queries,  I  determined  to  try  upon  the  worst  piece  of  all,  about 
seven  acres  of  land  next  to  the  wood,  numbered  19  on  the  map. 

Accordingly,  having  first  been  thoroughly  '  bush-drained,'  a 
process  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  describe  later,  down  it  went, 
the  permanent  pasture  seeds,  plus  the  deep-rooted  *  rubbish,'  being 
sown  in  a  crop  of  barley.^     In  the  two  following  years,  1895  and 

'  This  is  the  mixture  of  seeds  with  which  No,  19  was  sown  down  four  years 
ago,  and  that  has  been  sown  for  permanent  pasture  with  the  barley  on  No.  2 1 
this  year  (1898). 

Proportions  per  Acre 


Fiorin 

Meadow  Foxtail 
Crested  Dogstail 
Rough  Cocksfoot 
Hard  Fescue  . 
Tall  Fescue  . 
Sheep's  Fescue . 
Meadow  Fescue 
Perennial  Rye  Grass 
Greater  Birdsfoot  Trefoil 


.  x\  lbs.  Common  Yellow  Clover  or  Tre 

.  3     „  Timothy  or  Meadow  Catstail 

,  li   „  Rough  Stalked  Meadow  Grass 

.  3     ,,  Alsike  Clover      ... 

.  2     ,,  Perennial  Red  Clover 

,  2     ,,  Perennial  White  Clover     . 

.  2     „  Chicory       .... 

.  3     „  Burnet         .... 

.  3     „  Lucerne      .... 

.  4     ,,  Yarrow       .... 

45  lbs.  in  all.     The  four  last  mentioned  are  the  deep-rooted  herbs. 


oil 


lib. 

2  lbs. 

3  » 

2  ,, 

3  » 


uK. 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  &  THE  FARMS   \  5 

1896,  Nos.  1 5  and  1 6  were  also  laid  down  respectively;  but,  fearing 
to  put  all  our  eggs  into  one  basket,  my  steward.  Hood,  and  I 
agreed  to  very  largely  modify  the  proportion  of  deep-rooted  herbs. 
Last  spring  also  the  narrow  two  and  a  half  acres  marked  No.  10 
was  laid  down,  as  I  desired  to  connect  pasture  No.  7  with  the 
eight-acre  far  meadow,  No.  11,  so  as  to  form  a  continuous  belt  of 
grass  at  this  end  of  the  farm.  As  this  two  acres  (No.  10)  is  very 
good  land,  none  of  the  herbs  were  sown  with  the  grass  seeds. 

Now  for  the  results  so  far  as  they  have  gone.  Of  the  three 
heavy-land  pieces,  that  which  received  the  full  dose  of  deep- 
rooted  herbs  (No.  19)  looks  far  the  best,  although  of  course  it  must 
be  remembered  that  it  is  older  than  No.  15  by  one  year,  and  than 
No.  16  by  two  years.  Last  summer,  however,  it  threw  up  an 
abundant  supply  of  herbage,  on  which,  eked  out  with  some  cake, 
seven  yearling  steers  and  in-calf  heifers  lived  for  several  months, 
although  the  season  was  exceptionally  dry  and  distressing  to 
pastures,  especially  to  young  pastures.  No.  15,  on  the  contrary,  did 
not  look  or  do  very  grandly,  although  it  was  laid  down  clean  and 
drained,  and  its  soil  is  no  worse  than  that  of  No.  19.  It  was  set 
for  hay,  but  the  grass  seemed  so  short  and  poor  that  we  deter- 
mined to  let  it  stand  until  the  seeds  were  almost  ripe,  and  then  to 
feed  it  instead.  This  was  done ;  with  the  result  that  the  field  is 
now  a  mat  of  tiny  seedlings,  sprung  from  the  seeds  knocked  out 
by  the  cattle  as  they  fed.  Off  No.  16  we  took  a  crop  of  hay,  as 
it  is  usual  to  do  in  the  first  year  of  a  pasture  j  but,  owing  to  the 
drought,  it  gave  a  poor  return. 

The  general  result  of  the  experiment,  it  may  interest  Mr. 
Elliot  to  learn,  should  he  ever  chance  to  read  of  it,  up  to  the 
present  is  strikingly  in  favour  of  his  system  ;  so  much  so,  that 
I  intend  to  lay  down  field  No.  2 1  this  spring  exactly  on  the  same 
principle.  There  is,  however,  one  drawback  which  should  be 
mentioned.  These  herbs — or  perhaps  it  is  only  the  chicory,  the 
most  valuable  of  them  for  this  particular  purpose  of  aeration, 
because,  as  I  am  told,  the  most  deep-rooted— throw  up  tall  and 
unsightly  heads,  which  cattle  feed  round  and  sometimes  refuse, 


i6  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

with  the  result  that  a  pasture  sown  with  them  looks  as  though  it 
were  infested  by  a  crop  of  peculiarly  vigorous  docks.  The  best 
remedy  for  this  unsightliness  is,  about  midsummer,  to  send  a 
man  over  the  field  with  a  scythe,  charged  to  mow  them  down  — 
after  all,  no  great  or  costly  task. 

This  year  the  field  No.  19  is  to  come  for  hay  ;  and  I  hope  to 
record  in  these  pages  the  details  of  its  progress,  and  of  the  success 
or  failure  of  the  crop.  This  pasture  has  now  arrived  at  that  age 
when,  according  to  the  prophets  of  ill,  it  might  be  expected  to  begin 
to  die  away,  and  its  future  is  therefore  of  interest.  I  may  add  that 
it  has  never  been  manured,  as  have  most  of  the  new  pastures  here 
at  Ditchingham,  of  which  I  shall  speak  when  I  come  to  write  of 
this  Home  Farm,  for  the  reason  that  we  have  never  had  any  muck 
to  spare.  Most  of  it,  however,  has  now  received  a  coating  of  mud 
dug  out  from  ponds  and  ditches,  the  best  that  I  have  to  give  it, 
and  a  great  deal  better  than  nothing  at  all. 

Bordering  my  land  is  other  land.  I  know  not,  or  have  for- 
gotten, who  farms  it  or  owns  it,  but  on  this  land  are  fields  which, 
as  I  presume,  have  been  Maid  down.'  To  me,  looking  over  a 
neighbouring  lane,  the  herbage  seems  to  consist  chiefly  of  water 
grass,  black  grass,  elm  suckers,  and  various  weeds  whereon  even  a 
rabbit  would  scarcely  find  a  living.  So  far,  at  any  rate,  my  new 
meadows  are  better,  although  the  soil,  presumably,  is  the  same. 

The  truth  is  that  in  these  parts,  and  under  the  present  con- 
ditions of  farming,  it  is,  in  many  cases,  quite  useless  to  entrust 
the  laying  down  of  permanent  pastures  on  difficult  soils  to  tenants. 
The  landlord  finds  the  seed,  no  light  expense,  for  it  costs  305-.  the 
acre,  the  tenant  sows  it,  but  from  that  hour  nothing  goes  well 
Perhaps  the  land  is  not  clean  or  drained,  and  with  wet  weed- 
infested  soil  a  pasture  is  doomed  from  the  beginning,  for  the 
moss  and  water  grass  will  kill  out  the  finer  herbage.  More  pro- 
bably, however,  it  is  remorselessly  mown,  or  sheep  and  horses 
are  turned  on  within  the  first  year  or  two,  which  bite  and  nibble 
the  crowns  out  of  the  springing  grass  plants,  causing  them  to  die. 
Cattle  only  should  be  allowed  to  feed  young  pastures,  for  they 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  dr  THE  FARMS   17 

sweep  the  herbage  into  their  mouths  with  their  tongues,  and  do 
not  nip  it  down  close.  At  least,  the  result  is  too  frequently  the 
same  :  a  complaint  that  the  pasture  has  '  gone  off,'  with  a  sugges- 
tion that  the  seed  provided  at  so  great  a  cost  was  bad.  The 
truth  is  that  the  tenant  has  no  personal  interest  in  the  success  of 
the  experiment ;  it  is  the  landlord's  money  he  is  '  kicking  down,'  not 
his  own,  and  if  that  lot  of  seed  fails,  well,  the  landlord  can  find 
more.  Moreover,  it  is  probable  that  in  his  heart  he  does  not 
believe  in  the  laying  down  of  heavy  lands.  It  was  not  done  in 
his  father's  time,  or  in  his  own  youth,  and  so  it  must  be  wrong. 
Heavy  lands  were  intended  to  grow  corn.  Therefore  if  the  land- 
lord has  a  fad  on  the  point  and  wishes  to  make  them  grow  grass 
instead,  let  him  indulge  it  at  his  own  expense — he  at  least  is 
more  wise,  and  is  not  going  to  bother  about  the  matter. 

The  remainder  of  the  land  on  the  Moat  Farm,  excluding  the 
pieces  that  have  been  or  are  to  be  laid  down,  is  a  heavy  soil  of 
fair  quality,  such  as,  with  careful  tillage,  draining,  and  manuring, 
in  all  ordinary  seasons  should  produce  good  crops  of  whatever 
is  grown  upon  it.  The  particulars  of  the  use  to  which  each  field 
is  to  be  put  this  year  will  be  given  in  due  course  (see  Map,  p.  13), 
also  of  the  labour  and  horses  employed  upon  the  holding. 

THE   HOME   FARM 

I  turn  now  to  describe  the  land  I  farm  here  at  Ditchingham. 
Ditchingham  is  a  parish  of  about  eleven  hundred  inhabitants, 
containing  something  over  two  thousand  acres  of  land.  In  shape 
it  is  large  and  straggling,  but  the  most  of  the  population  live  at 
the  Bungay  end,  for  the  village  and  the  town  meet  at  the  bridge 
over  the  Waveney  ;  indeed,  were  it  not  for  the  sundering  river 
it  would  be  difficult  to  say  where  the  one  finishes  and  the  other 
begins.  The  village,  in  the  course  of  ages,  must  have  shifted 
away  from  the  church,  which,  in  the  beginning,  was  presumably 
its  central  point ;  at  least,  not  a  single  cottage  now  stands  near 
to  it.     Here  we  have  Uttle  difficulty  in  tracing  the  origin  of  the 

c 


i8  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

name  of  the  place,  since  down  on  the  '  Dam '  are  many  ditches, 
and  doubtless  it  was  from  some  ancient  dyke,  cut  in  an  age  when 
dykes  were  few,  that  the  village  was  christened  Ditchingham,  or 
the  Hamlet  of  the  Ditch.  Not  that  the  parish  is  all  low  land ;  on 
the  contrary,  most  of  it  is  high.  For  instance,  here  where  I 
live  the  wells  are  over  ninety  feet  deep,  at  which  depth  in  some 
dim  age  the  sea  once  rolled.  This  I  know,  for  when  a  few  years 
since  I  was  engaged  in  cleaning  out  a  disused  well,  and  in  order 
to  do  this  effectually  caused  it  to  be  deepened  by  a  few  feet,  we 
came  upon  sea  sand  containing  thousands  of  shells,  all  of  them 
common  and  familiar  to  us  to-day.  It  was  curious  to  look  at  them 
and  wonder  how  many  ages  had  gone  by  since  they  were  washed 
to  the  lip  of  the  tide  and  left  there  by  the  retreating  waves. 
Very  many,  I  suppose,  for  ninety  feet  of  clay  and  other  substances 
take  a  long  time  to  deposit.  But  whenever  it  was,  the  climate 
was  the  climate  of  England  as  we  know  it,  for  had  it  been  either 
tropical  or  arctic  the  shells  would  have  diifered  in  character. 

From  the  northern  part  of  the  parish  there  is  a  gradual  fall  of 
the  ground,  till  the  level  of  the  marshes  is  reached  at  its  southern 
end.  To  the  south-west  however  lies  the  great  feature  and  beauty  of 
the  village,  the  lofty  bank  or  incline  known  as  the  Bath  Hills,  and 
in  more  ancient  times  as  the  Earl's  Vineyard,  a  slope  eighty  or 
ninety  feet  high,  which  without  doubt  was  once  the  bank  of  an 
inland  fiord  or  tidal  water.  Now  the  space  beneath  is  drained  by 
the  gentle  winding  Waveney,  beyond  whose  stream  lies  a  wide 
expanse  of  400  acres  of  pasturage  and  gorse  known  as  Outney,  or 
Bungay  Common.  On  the  opposing  slopes  above  the  Waveney, 
which  encircles  this  common,  lie  Stow  Park,  once  a  home  of  the 
King's  deer,  and  the  wooded  fields  of  Earsham,  while  to  the 
south  appear  the  red  roofs  of  Bungay.  I  have  travelled  a  great 
way  about  the  world  in  my  time  and  studied  much  scenery,  but  I 
do  not  remember  anything  more  quietly  and  consistently  beautiful 
than  this  view  over  Bungay  Common  seen  from  the  Earl's  Vineyard, 
or,  indeed,  from  any  point  of  vantage  on  its  encircling  hills.  For 
the  most  part  of  the  year  the  plain  below  is  golden  with  gorse,  but  it 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  &*  THE  FARMS    19 

is  not  on  this  alone  that  the  sight  depends  for  beauty,  or  on  the 
green  of  the  meadows  and  the  winding  river  edged  with  lush 
marshes  that  in  spring  are  spotted  by  yellow  marigolds  and 
purple  with  myriads  of  cuckoo  flowers.  They  all  contribute  to  it, 
as  do  the  grazing  cattle,  the  gabled  distant  roofs,  and  the  church 
spires,  but  I  think  that  the  prospect  owes  its  peculiar  charm  to  the 
constant  changes  of  light  which  sweep  across  its  depths.  At  every 
season  of  the  year,  at  every  hour  of  the  day  it  is  beautiful,  but 
always  with  a  different  beauty.  Of  that  view  I  do  not  think  that 
any  lover  of  Nature  could  tire,  because  it  is  never  quite  the  same. 

The  lamentable  thing  is  that  with  such  a  prospect  at  our 
doors  only  One  house  in  the  neighbourhood.  Upland  Hall,  has 
any  benefit  from  it,  except  indeed  Ditchingham  Lodge,  which 
is  the  property  of  this  estate,  and  stands  at  the  bottom  of  the 
hill  almost  on  a  bend  of  the  river.  Had  the  builders  of  this 
house  where  I  write,  for  instance,  chosen  to  place  it  400  yards 
further  back,  as  they  might  very  easily  have  done,  it  would  have 
commanded  what  I  believe  to  be  the  finest  view  in  Norfolk,  since 
from  that  spot  the  eye  travels  not  only  over  the  expanse  of  Bungay 
Common  and  its  opposing  slopes,  but  down  the  valley  of  the 
Waveney  to  Beccles  town  and  tower.  But  it  would  seem  that  in 
the  time  of  the  Georges  the  people  who  troubled  their  heads 
about  beautiful  prospects  were  not  many.  The  country  was 
lonely  then,  and  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Norwich  road  had 
more  attractions  than  any  view.  Along  that  road  passed  the 
coaches,  bringing  a  breath  of  the  outer  world  into  the  quiet 
village,  and  the  last  news  of  the  wars ;  also,  did  any  member  of 
the  household  propose  to  travel  by  them,  it  was  easy  for  one  of 
the  men-servants  to  wheel  his  baggage  in  a  barrow  to  the  gate. 

But  people  did  not  travel  much  or  far  from  home.  The  con- 
stant intermarriages  amongst  neighbouring  families  in  those  days 
show  this  plainly.  Also,  even  such  a  small  place  as  Bungay,  with  its 
population  of  three  or  four  thousand,  had  a  winter  season*  An  aged 
relative,  who  still  lives  close  by,  tells  me  that  she  can  well  remember 
as  a  young  lady  being  carried  in  a  sedan  chair  to  card  parties  at 

c  2 


20  A   FARMER'S    YEAR      . 

the  assembly  rooms  in  the  Tuns  Inn,  also  how  gentle  families 
living  so  near  as  the  Rectory  at  Hedenham,  that  is  within  three 
miles,  used  to  migrate  to  a  town  house  at  Bungay  for  the  winter  !  * 

To  return  to  the  Bath  Hills.  Scenery  is  not  the  only  advan- 
tage of  these  slopes,  which  are  also  the  warmest  and  most 
sheltered  spot  in  this  part  of  Norfolk.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to 
say  that  there  are  days  in  spring  when,  here  on  the  top  of  the 
hill,  a  man  needs  an  ulster,  whereas  he  may  sit  in  the  Lodge  garden 
coatless,  and  listen  to  the  east  wind  howling  and  moaning  in  the 
Scotch  firs  on  the  crest  of  the  hill  above.  Any  farmer  will  under- 
stand the  value  of  such  a  place  for  sheltering  early  lambs  in 
spring,  the  only  question  being  whether  the  land  with  its  singular 
advantages  of  situation  could  not  be  put  to  a  better  use.  There 
is  little  doubt  but  that  one  of  the  Earl  Bigods  had  a  vineyard  here, 
for  the  traditional  name  still  lingers.  Also  that  vineyard  was 
growing  in  the  thirteenth  century,  as  Blomefield  quotes  a  deed 
uuder  which  William  de  Pirnho,  in  the  24th  of  Henry  III.,  re- 
leased to  Roger,  Earl  of  Norfolk,  by  fine,  his  right  of  fishery 
'  from  the  mill  of  Cliff  and  the  Bridge  of  Bungay,'  and  the  Earl 
granted  to  him  a  fishery  'from  Bungay  Bridge  to  the  Earl's 
Vineyard.'  Often  I  have  wondered  what  kind  of  wine  they  made 
at  this  vineyard,  and  who  was  so  bold  as  to  drink  it  ;  but  since  I 
have  heard  that  some  enterprising  person  has  taken  to  the  culti- 
vation of  the  grape  in  Wales  with  such  success  that — so  says  the 
wondrous  t^le — he  sells  his  home-made  champagne  for  845-.  the 
dozen,  it  has  occurred  to  me  that  the  Bigods  knew  more  than  we 
imagine  about  the  possibilities  of  vine-growing  in  England.  Or 
it  may  chance  that  the  climate  was  more  genial  in  those  days, 
although  this  is  very  doubtful. 

It  is,  however,  by  no  means  certain  that  there  was  not  a 
vineyard  on  these  slopes  so  late  as  1738.  In  that  year  a  certain 
John  King,  an  apothecary  of  Bungay,  wrote  a  very  curious  essay 
on  hot  and  cold  bathing.     It  appears  from  this  scarce  tract,  of 

^  Mrs.  Jane  Hartcup,  nee  Margitson,  the  lady  alluded  to  above,  died  in 
October  1898. 


THE    VINEYARD    HILLS    AND    BATH    HOUSE,    DITCHINGHAM,    'N    1738.    ', 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  ^  THE  FARMS   21 

which  I  have  been  so  fortunate  as  to  secure  a  perfect  copy,  that 
Mr.  King  was  then  the  owner  of  the  Vineyard  Hills,  and  of  some 
of  the  further  slopes  now  belonging  to  Captain  Meade,  of  Earsham. 
Here,  a  hundred  yards  or  so  beyond  the  boundary  of  this  property, 
he  discovered  a  mineral  spring,  *  which,'  he  says,  *at  length  I 
found  in  my  own  Land,  at  the  foot  of  a  large  and  deep  Hill, 
whose  oblique  Height  is  not  common ;  it's  most  curiously  adorn'd 
with  many  Sorts  of  Trees  standing  in  so  handsome  a  Manner,  as 
form  of  themselves  a  beautiful  Landskip,  the  opposite  side  is  a 
fine  delightful  Stream,  encompassing  a  large  spacious  Common, 
whose  Prospect  is  little  inferior  to  any.'  It  will  be  observed  that 
here  there  is  no  mention  of  a  vineyard,  but  in  the  illustration  of 
Bungay  Common  and  the  Bath  House  as  they  appeared  in  1738, 
which  is  here  reproduced  from  the  frontispiece  of  Mr.  King's  book, 
(please  observe  the  double  gallows  and  the  fine  coach),  can  be  seen 
vines  planted  on  the  hillside  slope.  Also  in  an  Appendix  a  letter 
is  quoted  written  (apparently)  to  Mr.  King  by  '  a  certain  Gentleman 
of  superior  abilities,'  who  does  not  sign  his  name.  This  gentleman 
in  turn  quotes  from  a  '  letter  to  a  young  lady  by  a  Gentleman  at  your 
Bath,  whither,  amongst  many  arguments  to  invite  her  thither,  he 
describes  the  Beauties  of  the  Place  in  the  following  Manner  : 

' "  Those  Lovely  Hills  which  incircle  the  flowery  Plain  are 
variegated  with  all  that  can  ravish  the  astonish'd  Sight;  they 
arise  from  the  winding  Mazes  of  the  River  Waveney,  enriched 
with  the  utmost  variety  the  watry  Element  is  capable  of  producing. 
Upon  the  Neck  of  this  Peninsula  the  Castle  and  Town  of 
Bungay  (now  startled  at  its  approaching  Grandeur)  is  situated  on 
a  pleasing  Ascent  to  view  the  Pride  of  Nature  on  the  other  Side, 
which  the  Goddesses  have  chose  for  their  earthly  Paradise,  where 
the  Sun  at  its  first  Appearance  makes  a  kindly  Visit  to  a  steep 
and  fertile  Vineyard,  richly  stored  with  the  choicest  Plants  from 
Burgundy^  Champaigne^  Provence  and  whatever  the  East  can 
furnish  us  wuth. 

' "  Near  the  Bottom  of  this  is  placed  the  Grotto  or  Bath  itself, 
.beautified  on  one  side  with  Oziers,  Groves  and  Meadows,  on  the 


2  2  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

other  with  Gardens,  Fruits,  shady  Walks  and  all  the  Decorations 
of  a  rural  Innocence. 

'"The  Building  is  designedly  plain  and  neat,  because  the 
least  attempt  of  artful  Magnificence  would  by  alluring  the  Eyes  of 
Strangers,  deprive  them  of  those  profuse  Pleasures  which  Nature 
has  already  provided. 

*  "  As  to  the  Bathing  there  'tis  a  Mixture  of  all  that  England, 
Paris  or  Rome  could  ever  boast  of;  no  one's  refused  a  kind 
Reception,  Honour  and  Generosity  reign  throughout  the  whole, 
the  Trophies  of  the  Poor  invite  the  Rich,  and  their  more  dazzling 
Assemblies  compel  the  Former." ' 

I  make  no  apologies  for  transcribing  '  the  Former,'  since  it 
deserves  Preservation  even  in  an  age  rich  in  Style.  Did  a  young 
man  write  it  who  sincerely  desired  that  his  adored  should  share 
with  him  the  pleasures  of  nature  at  Bungay,  and  at  the  same 
time  benefit  her  health  in  its  peerless  baths  ?  Or  did  the  late 
Mr.  King,  with  the  mundane  view  of  advertising  the  said  baths, 
put  these  glowing  words  into  the  mouth  of  an  imaginary  swain 
writing  to  a  fancied  mistress  ?  Alas  !  now  that  Mr.  King,  baths, 
lover  and  lady  have  alike  vanished,  and  only  the  hillside  and  the 
spring  remain,  the  question  never  can  be  answered. 

But  in  this  superb  epistle  a  vineyard  is  mentioned;  moreover  the 
kinds  of  grapes  planted  therein  are  specified.  Was  this  vineyard, 
furnished  with  the  fruits  of  the  '  East,'  an  effort  of  the  imagination 
suggested  by  the  traditional  name  of  the  place  (now  oddly  enough 
superseded  by  a  new  name  taken  from  the  tradition  of  Mr.  King's 
bath),  or  did  it,  as  the  picture  suggests,  really  exist  in  the 
year  1738?  Qiiien  sabel  as  they  say  in  Mexico.  There  have, 
in  my  time,  been  several  old  men  in  Ditchingham  whose  grand- 
fathers may  have  been  living  in  1738,  yet  I  never  heard  from  them 
any  tale  of  a  vineyard  on  the  Bath  Hills.     But  this  proves  nothing. 

Whether  or  not  the  vineyard  was  there,  certainly  the  spring 
was,  whose  healthful  properties  (according  to  Mr.  King,  who 
gives  his  cases)  wrought  so  many  cures  a  hundred  and  seventy 
years  ago,  for  it  still  bubbles  from  the  foot  of  the  hillside.     Even 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  &  THE  FARMS  23 

in  my  day  some  traces  of  the  bath  remained,  but  they  have 
vanished  now,  and  nothing  is  left  but  the  excavation  which  once 
held  the  water.  That  this  water  is  mineral  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  for  it  leaves  a  red  stain  on  the  mud,  caused,  I  suppose,  by 
the  presence  of  iron.  It  is  moreover  peculiarly  delicious  to 
drink ;  but  notwithstanding  these  advantages,  no  one  has  ever 
taken  the  trouble  to  have  it  analysed.  If  this  were  done,  possibly 
Bungay  might  once  more  be  '  startled  at  its  approaching  grandeur,' 
and  property  in  these  parts  would  increase  in  value — a  consumma- 
tion devoutly  to  be  wished. 

But  Bungay  has  bygone  grandeurs  of  its  own.  Its  name  has 
been  supposed  to  be  derived  from  Bon  Gue  or  Good  Ford,  but  as 
the  town  was  called  Bungay  before  ever  a  Norman  set  foot  in 
England,  this  interpretation  will  not  hold.  More  probable  is  that 
suggested  to  me  by  the  Rev.  J.  Denny  Gedge,  that  the  origin  of  the 
name  is  Bourne-gay  or  Boundary  Ford.  Or  the  prefix  '  Bun '  may,  as 
he  hazards  also,  have  been  translated  from  '  placenta,'  a  sacred  cake, 
indicating,  perhaps — but  this  is  my  suggestion — that  in  old  times 
Bungay  was  the  town  that  pre-eminently  '  took  the  cake.'  May- 
hap, for  in  philology  anything  might  chance  ;  but  if  so,  alas  !  it 
takes  it  no  longer. 

Bungay  Castle,  whereof  the  ruins  are  now  part  of  an  inn 
garden,  was  built  by  one  of  the  Bigods.  Here  King  Stephen 
besieged  Hugh  Bigod  and  took  the  castle.  This  Hugh  was  a 
second  time  besieged  at  Bungay  by  Henry  II.,  to  whom,  his 
garrison  of  five  hundred  men  having  deserted  him,  he  was  forced 
to  surrender.  Suckling  prints  in  full  the  spirited  old  ballad  that 
tells  the  tale  of  this  defeat.     Here  are  a  few  verses  of  it : 

The  King  had  sent  for  Bigod  bold 

In  Essex  whereat  he  lay, 

But  Lord  Bigod  laughed  at  his  Poursuivant, 

And  stoutly  thus  did  say  : 

Were  I  in  my  castle  of  Bungay, 

Upon  the  River  of  Waveney, 

I  would  no  care  for  the  King  of  Cockney. 


24  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

When  the  news  was  brought  to  London  town, 

How  Sir  Bigod  did  jest  and  sing, 

Say  you  to  Lord  Hew  of  Norfolk, 

Said  Henry,  our  English  King, 

Though  you  be  in  your  castle  of  Bungay, 

Upon  the  River  of  Waveney, 

I'll  make  you  care  for  the  King  of  Cockney. 

At  last  comes  the  lamentable  end  of  Sir  Bigod's  boasting  : 

Sir  Hugh  took  three  score  sacks  of  gold, 

And  flung  them  over  the  wall, 

Says  go  your  ways  in  the  Devil's  name, 

Yourself  and  your  merry  men  all ! 

But  leave  me  my  castle  of  Bungay, 

Upon  the  River  of  Waveney, 

And  I'll  pay  my  shot  to  the  King  of  Cockney. 

His  shot  he  paid  sure  enough — one  thousand  marks  of  gold 
and  the  destruction  of  his  'castle  of  Bungay.'  This,  however,  was 
rebuilt  by  his  descendant,  Roger  Bigod,  in  1289,  about  a  hundred 
years  after  its  demolition,  under  special  license  from  Edward  I., 
and  it  is  the  ruins  of  the  second  castle  which  we  see  to-day. 

There  was  also  a  Benedictine  Nunnery  at  Bungay  dedicated  to 
God  and  the  Holy  Cross,  of  which  some  few  fragments  still  remain, 
founded  in  the  year  11 60  by  Roger  de  Glanville  and  his  wife 
Gudruda,  the  widow  of  Roger  Bigod.  I  have  in  my  possession  a 
deed  executed  by  Roger  de  Huntingfeld  about  1295,  under  which 
he  '  settles,  gives,  and  concedes,  and  by  this  charter  confirms  to 
God  and  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Cross  of  Bungaie  and  the  holy 
people  who  serve  God  in  it,  Alveva,  the  wife  of  Roger  Brunllan, 
and  Thomas,  his  firstborn  son,  with  the  tenement  which  he  holds 
of  me  in  this  town  of  Medefeld  ...  for  the  health  of  the  souls  of 
my  father  and  mother  and  of  my  ancestors  and  successors.' 

Here  I  append  a  translation  of  the  full  text  of  this  document, 
which  is  worth  transcribing,  although  the  original  Latin,  with  its 
curious  contractions  beautifully  written  out  by  some  thirteenth- 
century  lawyer,  is  interesting  only  to  antiquaries : 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  6^  THE  FARMS   25 

Translation 

To  all  Christ's  faithful,  to  whom  this  present  writing  comes,  Roger  of 
Huntingfield  wishes  health.  Let  our  whole  acquaintance  know  that  I  have 
given  and  granted,  and  by  this  present  charter  of  mine  have  confirmed,  to  God 
and  to  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Cross  at  Bungay  and  to  the  nuns  there  serving 
God,  Alveva,  the  wife  of  Roger  Brunllan,  and  Thomas  his  firstborn  son,  with 
their  whole  tenement  which  they  held  of  me  in  the  village  of  Metfield,  of  the 
purtenances  of  Mendham,  for  free,  and  pure,  and  perpetual  charity  for  the 
salvation  of  the  soul  of  my  father,  and  of  my  mother,  and  of  my  ancestors  and 
successors.  Saving  the  service  of  (our)  lord  the  King,  to  wit,  for  ward,  one 
penny  a  year  on  a  thousand  shillings,  and  for  scutage  of  (our)  lord  the  King  on 
twenty  shillings  two  pence,  and  on  more,  more,  and  on  less,  less. 

And  that  this  donation  and  confirmation  may  remain  firm  and  settled  I 
have  strengthened  it  by  the  muniment  of  my  seal  for  myself  and  for  my  heirs. 

These  being  witnesses :  William  of  Huntingfield,  Walter  Malet,  Peter 
Walter,  Robert  of  Huntingfield,  William  of  Corton,  Hubert  Walter,  Alan 
of  Withersdale,  William  Cantelow,  G(eofifrey  ?)  of  Drokes,  Adam  the  son  of 
Walter,  Walter  King,  Adam  the  monk,  William  the  monk,  Martin  the  monk, 
Godfrey  of  Linburne. 

Strange  times  indeed  when  a  woman  and  her  son  could  be  given 
as  serfs  to  a  nunnery  to  benefit  various  souls,  disembodied  or  still 
to  be  embodied.  This  ancient  and  most  interesting  document 
still  carries  the  perfect  seal  of  Roger  de  Huntingfeld,  which,  as  he 
states,  he  affixes  to  it  to  bind  himself  and  his  heirs.  On  the  next 
page  is  a  reproduction  of  it  as  it  came  from  his  hand— all  that 
remains  to-day  of  the  pious  and  once  upon  a  time  very  important 
Roger.  Well,  six  centuries  hence,  of  how  many  of  us  will  there 
be  left  even  as  much  as  this  ?     Few,  indeed,  I  think. 

This  deed  passed  to  me  in  a  curious  manner.  Some  years  ago 
I  went  into  the  shop  of  a  chemist  at  Kensington  with  a  prescription, 
and  left  my  address,  to  which  it  was  to  be  posted.  In  due  course 
the  medicine  arrived,  and  with  it  the  original  charter  of  Roger  de 
Huntingfeld.  The  chemist,  Mr.  W.  H.  Stickland,  into  whose  hands 
the  parchment  had  come,  I  forget  how,  knowing  that  it  had  to  do 
with  Bungay,  and  that  I  lived  in  the  neighbourhood,  most  kindly 
sent  it  to  me.  I  can  assure  him  that  his  gift  was  appreciated ; 
indeed,  I  would  swallow  many  potions  to  win  such  another. 


26 


A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


Bungay  in  the  old  days  was  famous  as  the  seat  of  an  Industry 
for  the  copper  bottoming  of  ships,  though  what  sort  of  ships  they 
were  that  could  sail  up  the  Waveney  to  Bungay  staithe  I  know  not. 
Certainly  they  could  not  have  drawn  much  water ;  but  then,  even 

the  ocean-going  vessels  of  three 
hundred  years  ago  were  very 
small.  Had  they  not  been  so 
Queen  Elizabeth  could  scarcely 
have  spoken  of  her  '  seaport  of 
Norwich,'  as  she  does  when 
giving  leave  to  Hollanders  of  the 
reformed  faith  to  take  refuge 
there  from  religious  persecution. 
The  stranger  of  to-day,  con- 
templating the  muddy  waters  of 
the  Wensum,  with  its  burden  of 
wherries,  would  scarcely  think 
of  describing  Norwich  as  a 
seaport.  But  the  ships  that  used 
it  in  those  times  were  large 
enough  to  help  to  beat  back 
the  Armada. 

There  still  lingers,  or  lingered 
a  few  years  ago,  a  vague  belief 
that  the  devil  is  on  rare  occasions 
to  be  met  with  in  these  parts, 
and  especially  on  Hollow  Hill  in 
this  parish,  in  the  concrete  shape 
of  the  black  dog  of  Bungay. 
Indeed,  once  I  met  him  myself  at  this  very  spot,  looking  saucer- 
eyed  in  the  twilight  and  clanking  an  appropriate  chain,  but  he 
turned  out  to  be  an  escaped  retriever.  The  original  animal, 
however,  was  a  dog  or  a  devil  of  mettle.  His  most  striking 
recorded  appearance  was  in  the  midst  of  a  terrific  thunderstorm 
on  Sunday,  August  4,  1577,  in  the  church  of  St.  Mary.     Hear 


SEAL   OF    ROGER    DE    HUNTINGFELD 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  6-  THE  FARMS  21 

what  one  Abraham  Fleming  says  on  the  subject,  or  rather  a  short 
extract  from  his  voluminous  report : 

'This  Black  Dog  or  the  Divel  in  such  a  likeness  (God  hee 
knoweth  all  who  worketh  all)  running  all  along  down  the  body  of 
the  Church  with  great  swiftness  and  incredible  haste  among  the 
people,  in  a  visible  forme  and  shape,  passed  between  two  persons  as 
they  were  kneeling  on  their  knees  and  occupied  in  prayer  as  it 
seemed,  wrung  the  necks  of  them  bothe  at  one  instant  clene  back- 
ward, insomuch  that  even  in  a  moment  where  they  kneeled  they 
stra'gely  died.  This  is  a  wonderful  exam.ple  of  God's  wrath,  no 
doubt  to  terrfie  us,  that  we  might  feai  him  for  his  justice,  or 
putting  back  our  footsteps  from  the  paths  of  sin,  to  love  him  foi 
his  mercy.' 

After  this  the  Black  Dog,  pursuing  his  violent  career,  gave 
another  membei  of  the  congregation  '  such  a  gripe  in  the  back 
that  therewithall  he  was  presently  drawn  togither  and  shrunk  up, 
as  it  were  a  piece  of  lether  schorched  in  a  hot  fire ;  or  as  the 
mouth  of  a  purse  or  bag  drawn  togither  with  a  string.' 

Next  the  Dog  went  up  to  the  roof,  where  he  greatly  alarmed 
the  clerk,  who  was  cleaning  out  the  gutter,  and  so  away.  '  O  Lord,' 
ends  the  worthy  but  credulous  Fleming,  '  how  wonderful  art  Thou 
in  all  Thy  works.'  Wonderful  indeed  !  Still,  there  is  some  truth  in 
the  story,  since  the  registers  of  St.  Mary  record  that  in  this  year 
*  John  Fuller  and  Adam  Walker  slayne  in  the  tempest,  in  the  bel- 
fry in  the  tyme  of  prayer,  upon  the  Lord's  Day,  ye  nth  of  August.' 

To  return  to  the  Bath  Hills,  from  which  I  have  wandered  a  full 
mile.  Beyond  the  site  of  the  Earl's  Vineyard  and  the  kitchen 
garden  of  the  Lodge  are  some  acres  of  woodland.  This,  which  has 
for  many  years  been  the  constant  haunt  of  trespassers,  boys  bird- 
nesting,  foot  passengers  escaping  into  it  from  the  muddy  right  of 
way  above,  poachers  seeking  pheasants'  eggs,  and  amorous  couples, 
I  have  now  enclosed  with  a  veritable  fortification  of  the  strongest 
and  most  prickly  barbed  wire  that  money  will  buy,  whereby  I  hope 
to  abate  the  nuisance.  My  chief  object,  however,  is  to  keep 
the  place  perfectly  quiet,  so  that  it  may  become  the  home  of  all 


28  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

sorts  of  birds  and  wild  things.  In  this  attempt  I  think  I  ought 
to  be  successful,  since  this  warm  slope,  with  the  stream  at  its  foot, 
is  already  favoured  by  them,  and  beasts  and  birds  very  soon  collect 
where  they  find  none  to  do  them  harm.  Already  there  are  otters 
on  the  river,  and  I  thought  of  putting  down  some  badgers,  but  have 
not  done  so,  as  I  am  told  that  they  are  somewhat  destructive  to 
gardens.  At  least  the  birds,  of  which  there  are  already  many 
varieties,  will  multiply,  as  the  wood  is  not  too  deep  for  them 
Birds  do  not  like  a  large  wood,  and  rarely  build  in  its  centre, 
whence  they  have  far  to  fly  for  food. 

By  the  foot  of  the  Vineyard  Hills,  at  a  little  distance  from  the 
garden,  stands  the  Lodge,  a  quaint  red-brick  residence  of  which 
some  part  at  least  is  very  ancient.  Indirectly  this  house  is  con- 
nected with  the  famous  French  writer  and  politician,  the  Vicomte 
de  Chateaubriand,  and  directly  with  a  young  lady  whom  he  admired 
or  who  admired  him.  She  was  the  daughter  of  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Ives,  who  was  rector  of  St.  Margaret's,  Ilketshall,  but  lived  in 
Bungay.  This  excellent  shepherd  of  souls,  by  the  way,  is  reported 
to  have  been  one  of  the  hardest-headed  men  of  his  time,  that  is, 
he  could  drink  almost  anybody  else  under  the  table.  So  great  was 
his  fame  that  it  excited  the  envy  of  a  Duke  of  Norfolk  of  that  day, 
who  also  had  a  reputation  to  keep  up.  They  met,  they  drank ; 
bottle  after  bottle  of  port  disappeared,  till  at  length  towards 
midnight  victory  declared  for  the  Church,  and  his  conquered 
Grace  bowed  and  fell,  yes,  he  slid  senseless  beneath  the  board. 
Then  came  the  marvel  which,  when  he  recovered,  impressed  the 
Duke  so  much  that  it  moved  him,  so  says  the  story,  to  present  his 
reverend  victor  with  a  living.  Clear-eyed  and  steady,  Mr.  Ives 
rose  from  his  chair,  rang  the  bell,  ordered  of  the  astonished  butler 
a  glass  of  brandy  and  water,  hot  and  stiff— 2StQX  all  the  port,  hot 
and  stiff,  by  Bacchus  ! — drank  it,  and  strolled  quietly  home. 

This  tale  was  told  to  me  many  years  since  by  an  aged  gentle- 
man now  dead,  and  I  have  no  doubt  but  that  in  substance,  at  any 
rate,  it  is  true.  Seventy  or  eighty  years  ago  even  it  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  common  for  the  elite  of  the  Bungay  neighbourhood 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  6-   THE  FARMS   29 

to  return  sober  from  a  dinner-party.  On  these  festive  occasions 
each  man's  wife,  indeed,  was  expected  to  support  and  see  him  home. 

When  in  1793  Chateaubriand,  whom,  so  says  local  tradition, 
his  pupils  used  to  call  Monsieur  *  Shatterbrain,'  came  to  England 
as  a  refugee  in  the  days  of  the  Terror,  he  drifted  down  to  Bungay, 
how  or  why  I  do  not  know,  where  he  supported  himself  by  giving 
French  lessons  in  the  neighbourhood.  Amongst  his  pupils  was 
Charlotte  Ives,  the  daughter  and  only  child  of  the  hard-drinking 
parson,  a  very  pretty  and  charming  young  lady  with  large  dark 
eyes  which  are  still  remembered  in  this  neighbourhood.  The 
exiled  Frenchman  was  tender,  and  Charlotte,  it  seems,  was  im- 
pressionable ;  at  any  rate,  she  welcomed  his  advances,  and  being  a 
young  woman  of  determined  mind,  persuaded  her  well-to-do  parents 
to  overlook  the  emigre's  lack  of  means  and  position  and  to  put 
no  obstacle  in  his  amorous  path.  Time  went  on,  but  although  the 
attentions  continued,  as  nothing  tangible  came  of  them,  Mrs.  Ives, 
the  mother,  thinking  that  he  did  not  speak  because  of  a  natural 
delicacy  that  sprang  from  his  lack  of  fortune,  took  Chateaubriand 
aside  in  the  old  red  house  in  Bridge  Street,  and  explained  to  him 
frankly  that  as  they  were  mutually  attached,  and  as  their  daughter 
would  be  well  provided  for,  his  misfortunes  need  be  no  obstacle 
to  their  union.  The  gallant  Frenchman  looked  up  and  sighed, 
then  he  looked  down  and  murmured  :  '  H^las  !  Madame,  je  suis 
d^sol^ ;  mats  je  suis  marie  ! '  For  all  the  time  this  poetic  soul 
could  boast  a  wife  in  France  ! 

In  the  end  the  young  lady,  getting  over  her  disappointment, 
married  a  sailor  who  became  Admiral  Sutton,  and  lived  for  many 
years  as  a  wife  and  widow  at  the  Lodge.  When  in  after  days 
Chateaubriand  returned  to  England  as  the  Ambassador  of  France, 
a  meeting  took  place  between  him  and  his  old  love,  Mrs.  Sutton. 
At  first  it  was  arranged  that  they  should  see  each  other  here  at 
Ditchingham,  but  in  the  end  she  went  to  London,  and  what  passed 
at  the  interview  I  do  not  know. 

About  this  Mrs.  Sutton  is  told  another  rather  interesting  story. 
When  she  was  a  widow  at  the  Lodge  she  engaged  for  her  sons  a 


30  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

certain  tutor  named  Colonel  A.,  who  for  various  reasons  became 
very  distasteful  to  the  lads  in  question.  In  his  habits  Colonel  A. 
was  free  and  easy,  and  as  the  dark  stain  upon  the  white  marble 
still  shows,  or  showed  not  long  ago,  it  was  his  graceful  habit  while 
instructing  the  mind  of  youth  to  rest  his  head  against  the  mantel- 
piece and  prop  his  legs  upon  a  chair.  In  due  course  Colonel  A., 
the  tutor,  died,  and,  much  against  the  will  of  her  sons,  Mrs.  Sutton, 
who,  as  I  have  said,  was  of  a  determined  character,  insisted  upon 
burying  him  in  the  Sutton  vault  in  Ditchingham  churchyard. 
Time  went  on  and  Mrs.  Sutton  died  also,  whereon  the  sons, 
taking  the  opportunity  of  the  vault  being  opened,  dragged  out  the 
body  of  their  unfortunate  mentor  by  night,  and  thrust  it  into  a 
hole  which  they  had  dug  somewhere  in  the  graveyard.  That 
this  tale  is  substantially  correct  I  have  satisfied  myself  by  inquiry. 

The  rest  of  the  Bath  Hills  to  the  south  of  the  Lodge  dwelling- 
house  are  clothed  with  Scotch  firs  and  other  trees,  below  which  lies 
a  stretch  of  grass  land  running  down  to  the  river.  This  grass, 
most  of  which  I  let,  is  not  of  first-rate  quality,  though  good 
enough  in  dry  seasons,  because  of  the  floods  which  spread  over  it 
in  times  of  heavy  rain.  In  1879,  the  first  of  our  really  bad  years, 
the  floods  were  so  high  that  many  of  the  trees  were  killed,  though 
some  of  them  took  a  dozen  years  to  die.  Last  year  also  we  had 
a  heavy  flood  in  February,  but  it  was  of  brief  duration.  Indeed 
the  floods  are  neither  so  frequent  nor  so  prolonged  as  they  used 
to  be,  either  because  the  millers  below  are  more  merciful  in  the 
matter  of  holding  up  the  water  with  their  sluice-gates,  or  because 
the  bridge  at  Beccles  has  been  widened,  allowing  the  stream  to 
escape  quicker  to  the  sea.  Round  Beccles  itself,  however,  I 
believe  that  the  water  has  been  out  more  than  usual,  owing  to 
the  high  tides,  which  dam  up  the  mouth  of  the  river.  Never  has 
such  a  time  for  high  tides  been  known,  and  the  gale  of  December 
last  will  long  be  remembered  on  the  east  coast  for  its  terrible 
amount  of  damage.  The  sight  close  to  a  house  which  I 
possess  at  Kessingland,  a  place  near  Lowestoft,  was  something 
to  remember,  for  here  and  at  Pakefield  the  high  cliff"  has  been 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  ^^  THE  FARMS  31 

taken  away  by  the  thousand  tons.  In  such  a  tide  the  fierce  scour 
from  the  north  licks  the  sand  cliff  and  hollows  it  out  till  the  clay 
stratum  above  it  falls,  and  is  washed  into  the  ocean.  Fortunately 
for  me,  my  house  is  protected  by  a  sea-wall,  and  though  the  water 
got  behind  the  end  of  this,  it  did  no  further  damage  ;  but  with 
property  that  was  not  so  fortified  the  case  was  very  different 
— it  has  gone  in  mouthfuls.  Old  residents  on  the  coast  declare 
that  no  such  tide  has  been  known  within  the  present  century,  and 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  there  will  not  be  another  for  the  next 
century.  But  these  phenomenal  events  have  an  unpleasant  way 
of  repeating  themselves,  and  if  this  happens,  the  loss  and  desolation 
will  be  very  great — greater  even  than  that  of  the  December  gale. 

For  generations  the  sea  has  been  encroaching  on  this  coast. 
So  long  ago  as  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth  it  is  said  that  three 
churches  went  over  the  cliff  at  Dunwich  in  a  single  Sunday  afternoon, 
yet  during  all  this  time  no  concerted  effort  has  been  made  for  the 
common  protection.  If  we  were  Dutchmen  the  matter  would  have 
been  different,  but  here  in  rural  England,  unless  they  are  forced 
to  it  by  Act  of  Parliament,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  oblige  people 
to  combine  to  win  future  profits  or  ward  off  future  dangers.  It  is 
chiefly  for  this  reason  that  I  do  not  believe  that  creameries  and 
butter  factories  will  be  successfully  established  in  our  time — at  any 
rate  in  this  part  of  East  Anglia — for  to  secure  success  I  imagine 
that  common  effort  and  mutual  support  would  be  necessary,  and 
to  such  things  our  farmers  are  not  accustomed.  Many  of  them, 
to  all  appearance,  would  prefer  individual  failure  to  the  achieve- 
ment of  a  corporate  victory. 

The  great  tide  of  the  December  gale  was  followed  by  other 
high  tides,  luckily  unaccompanied  by  north  winds  of  unusual 
strength,  and  therefore  not  so  destructive  ;  but  the  effect  of  these 
tides  does  not  reach  so  far  as  Bungay.  Here  our  floods  result  from 
rain  only,  and  of  rain  we  have  had  little  to  speak  of  since  the 
.  beginning  of  last  spring. 

Although  there  is  a  proportion  of  heavy  soil  on  it,  but  none  so 
heavy  that  it  cinnot  be  drained  with  pipes,  the  land  which  I  culti- 


$2  '  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

vate  in  this  parish  is  comparatively  speaking  light.  Not  that  it  is 
a  light-land  farm  in  the  sense  that  some  of  the  Norfolk  country  is 
light — that  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Brandon,  for  instance — but  on 
the  whole  it  is  soil  that  would  do  better  in  a  wet  season  than  in  a 
dry  one.  And  for  the  last  few  years  it  has  been  dreadfully  dry,  at 
least  at  those  periods  of  the  season  when  rain  was  most  wanted.  - 
This  land  at  Ditchingham,  of  which  I  propose  to  treat  in  the 
following  pages,  is  made  up  of  four  separate  holdings :  i.  That 
portion  of  my  own  property  which  I  farm,  amounting  to  about  one 
hundred  and  forty-six  acres,  whereof  about  ninety-six  are  pasture ; 
2.  The  hired  farm  known  as  Baker's,  taken  on  this  last  November, 
and  amounting  to  about  fifty-six  acres,  of  which  eight  acres  are 
pasture  ;  3.  The  hired  farm  known  as  All  Hallows,  of  nearly  forty- 
four  acres,  of  which  about  seven  are  pasture ;  4.  Glebe  land 
amounting  to  fourteen  acres,  no  pasture.  Therefore,  with  sundry 
enclosures,  in  Ditchingham  I  am  farming  about  two  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  of  land,  of  which  one  hundred  and  twelve  acres  are 
pasture,  some  of  it  laid  down  within  the  last  few  years.  On  this 
farm  the  stock  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  1898  was  : 

Cattle  above  two  years  old,  including  twenty  cows  .  34 
Other  cattle,  including  calves  .  .  .  .  .18 
Sheep,  including  two  rams         .         .         .         .         -So 

Pigs 33 

Horses  and  colts 11 

Total  head 146 

The  labour  employed  here  at  Ditchingham  at  the  beginning  of  the 
year  was  one  working  steward,  eight  men,  one  boy. 

My  farming  began  in  the  year  1889,  when,  letting  off  the  rest 
of  it  in  small  parcels,  I  took  about  a  hundred  and  twenty  acres  in 
hand  on  the  occasion  of  the  tenant  giving  up  the  farm.  Then  the 
land  which  I  took  over,  naturally  good  for  the  most  part,  was  in  so 
scandalous  a  condition  that  now,  after  eight  years'  cleaning  and 
manuring,  it  has  only  just  recovered  its  fertility.  The  heart  had 
been  dragged  out  of  it  and  very  little  put  into  it  in  return ;  for 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  ^  THE  FARMS  33 

instance,  if  I  remember  right,  the  back  lawn  had  been  mown  nine 
years  in  succession.  Moreover,  the  arable  was  for  the  most  part 
a  mass  of  docks  and  other  weeds — indeed,  such  was  its  condition 
that  after  vainly  attempting  to  clean  one  piece  for  two  years,  we  had 
to  abandon  the  effort  and  *  summer  till '  it.  Another  field  of  four 
and  a  half  acres  I  let  off.  Meeting  the  tenant  a  while  afterwards, 
I  asked  him  how  he  was  getting  on,  whereon  he  informed  me, 
almost  with  tears,  that  he  had  spent  fourteen  pounds  in  labour  in 
getting  the  docks  out  of  that  field  !  In  proof  of  his  words  he 
showed  me  the  docks  themselves,  with  salt  thrown  over  them, 
heaped  in  a  long  '  hale,'  like  beet,  where  in  due  course  they  rotted, 
to  be  put  back  on  to  the  land  as  manure.  To-day  that  close  is  a 
pleasure  to  look  at.  The  occupier  farms  it  in  four  shifts,  as  though 
it  were  a  tiny  farm,  and  not  a  weed  can  1  discover  on  it,  for  every 
bit  of  black  grass  even  is  forked  out.  The  result  is  that  he  grows 
more  on  his  four  acres  than  many  people  do  on  six  or  eight. 

Farms  coming  on  their  owners'  hands  in  the  condition  of  that 
which  I  am  describing  are  not  rare  nowadays,  having  been  reduced 
to  it  by  the  poverty  of  the  tenant  or  by  deliberate  '  land-sucking.' 
Even  in  these  times  a  deal  of  money  can  be  made  in  four  years  or 
so  out  of  a  farm,  provided  that  it  is  in  good  heart  at  the  time  when 
the  '  land-sucker '  commences  operations.  Let  us  say  that  he  has 
taken  on  a  four  years'  lease  a  holding  which  has  been  worked  for  a  long 
period  by  its  former  owner,  some  gentleman  deceased,  or  that  he  has 
decided  to  give  up  his  tenancy  after  the  expiration  of  another  three 
or  four  years.  From  that  moment,  if  he  be  a  person  of  this  sharp- 
dealing  order,  the  land  will  be  run  with  its  labour  bill  brought  down 
to  an  irreducible  minimum  ;  the  hay  and  straw  will  be  sold  off  it 
instead  of  going  back  into  the  soil  as  manure,  weeds  will  be  left  to 
seed  and  drains  to  choke  and  '  holls  '  uncleared,  and  many  other 
things  will  be  done,  or  left  undone,  that  are  known  only  to  the 
experienced  land-sucker. 

Then  Heaven  help  the  unfortunate  landlord  who  finds 
himself  in  the  possession  of  acres  so  deteriorated  that  nobody 
will  pay  a  rent  for  them,  for  it  will  need  capital,  skill,  and  six  or 

D 


34  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

eight  years   of  time   to  bring  them  round;  acres  which,   very 
possibly,  he  cannot  afford  to  face  the  loss  of  farming  himself. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  compensation  by  the  land- 
lord for  the  unexhausted  improvements  of  tenants,  but  one  never 
hears  anything  about  compensation  to  the  landlord  for  their  in- 
exhaustible dis-improvements.  Doubtless  that  unfortunate  and 
much-abused  person  has  a  theoretic  remedy,  but  evidently  it  is  one 
which  in  practice  cannot  be  enforced.  Even  with  my  present 
experience  I  could  undertake  to  leave  the  land  I  hire  in  a 
scandalous  condition  without  giving  any  of  my  various  landlords 
a  cause  of  action  against  me  which  would  be  recognised  as  worthy 
of  damages  by  an  ordinary  jury.  Obviously  this  sort  of  interpre- 
tation of  agreements  is  a  new  thing  that  came  in  with  the  bad 
times.  The  old  stamp  of  tenant  would  have  starved  before  he 
treated  the  land  and  its  owner  thus,  or,  if  here  and  there  one 
found  a  man  of  a  different  kidney,  the  landlord  would  have  given 
him  notice  promptly,  assured  that  his  place  could  be  filled  by  a 
person  of  different  views.  But  those  days  have  gone,  and  other 
days  have  come,  when  the  majority  of  landlords  are  not  in  a  position 
to  turn  away  a  tenant,  however  bad  he  is,  so  long  as  he  pays  some- 
thing resembling  a  rent.  It  is  a  case  of  vcb  victis,  at  any  rate  in  our 
Eastern  Counties,  although  fortunately  there  are  still  tenants  who, 
being  men  of  probity,  take  a  different  view  of  their  obligations. 

But  however  bad  the  state  of  the  farm,  the  landlord  who  is 
called  upon  to  take  it  in  hand  will  find  that  the  valuation  upon 
it  amounts  to  a  very  considerable  sum  of  money.  This  '  valua- 
tion,' it  may  be  explained,  is  the  amount  due  to  the  outgoing 
tenant.  If  he  is  under  '  Norfolk  covenants '  he  is  paid  by  the 
crops,  if  he  is  under  the  '  Suffolk  covenants '  he  is  paid  by  the 
ploughings.  In  the  first  case  he  will  generally  find  that  the  farm 
has  been  singularly  productive  during  the  preceding  year,  for  with 
skill  and  knowledge  even  a  holding  in  the  worst  of  order  can  be 
made  temporarily  productive.  Thus  a  boy  with  a  bag  of  certain  sorts 
of  artificial  manure,  such  as  nitrate  of  soda,  and  a  teaspoon  in  any 
ordinary  season  can  go  far  towards  securing  a  large  total  of  bulky 
root,  however  coarse  and  watery  in  fibre.     One  way  and  another 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  &»  THE  FARMS  35 

also  a  very  considerable  tonnage  of  hay  may  be  reckoned  on,  and 
if  the  tenant  has  not  found  it  necessary  to  muck  his  fields  for  the 
last  twelve  or  fifteen  months,  there  are  piles  of  manure,  most  of 
it  mere  dirty  rain-washed  straw,  which  will  add  up  satisfactorily. 
For  instance,  on  this  farm  of  about  two  hundred  acres,  when  I  took 
it  over,  the  valuations  paid  in  cash  amounted  to  382/.  I  suggest 
that  it  would  be  equitable  if  the  docks  and  other  dis-improve- 
ments  had  been  valued  per  contra. 

When  I  had  farmed  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  to  one 
hundred  and  forty  acres  of  my  own  land  for  some  five  years  I  hired 
the  small  farm  of  forty-three  acres  known  as  All  Hallows,  which 
runs  into  mine.  This  land,  belonging  as  it  does  to  an  institution 
in  the  parish  which  had  been  working  it,  was  in  good  heart  and 
order ;  for  which  reason,  and  because  from  its  position  it  was  con- 
venient to  me  to  take  it,  I  consented  to  pay  for  it  the  high  rent, 
as  things  are  here,  of  70/.  Of  this  sum,  however,  about  19/.  comes 
back  from  the  rent  of  the  farmhouse,  which  I  let  off  as  a  dwelling, 
and  of  two  cottages  that  go  with  it.  So  the  net  rent  of  the 
land  is  about  23^-.  dd.  per  acre.  At  the  same  time  I  hired 
about  fourteen  and  a  half  acres  of  glebe,  very  light  and  gravelly 
soil,  though  not  unproductive  in  a  wet  season.  This  land,  which 
for  years  had  been  farmed  by  a  poor  old  gentleman  who  had  not 
the  means  to  work  it,  was  in  an  awful  condition ;  indeed,  it  is 
only  just  beginning  to  recover  heart.  I  think  that  I  am  now 
paying  for  it  a  rent  of  1 2/. 

Also,  last  autumn  I  hired  from  a  neighbour,  a  gentleman 
who  bought  it  on  the  double  bankruptcy  of  its  former  owner 
and  of  the  tenant  who  worked  it,  another  small  farm  in  the 
parish  known  as  '  Baker's.'  This  farm  on  the  whole  is  very  fair 
land,  with  good  buildings,  but  it  has  been  sadly  dealt  by  for  the 
last  few  years  ;  therefore  docks  and  other  weeds  are  many,  and  its 
general  condition  is  low,  with  scarcely  a  sound  gate  or  a  holding 
fence  in  it.  On  every  acre  of  it,  indeed,  is  written  the  old  story  of 
borrowed  capital  and  insufficient  stock  and  labour.  Yet  I  remember 
that  six  or  seven  years  ago,  when  a  former  owner,  now  dead,  had  it  in 
hand,  this  land  used  to  be  some  of  the  best  farmed  and  most  pro- 

D  2 


36 


A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


ductive  in  the  parish,  as,  if  I  live  and  continue  to  work  it,  I  trust  it 
may  be  again.     At  the  least,  however,  it  will  take  four  years  to  pull 


-  THE    FARMS  - 
DITCHINGHAM. 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  &>  THE  FARMS  37 


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38 


A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


it  round.  For  this  land  I  pay  15^.  per  acre,  or  about  40/.  for  the 
first  year,  and  i^js.  6d.  an  acre,  or  about  46/.  105.  for  future  years. 

Lastly  I  hire  the  shooting  rights  over  a  large  wood  of  120 
acres,  known  as  Tindale  Wood  and  belonging  to  Lord  de  Saumarez. 
This  is  not  strictly  a  farming  item,  but  as  a  little  shooting  is  generally 
included  in  the  record  of  '  A  Farmer's  Year  '  (if  the  state  of  agri- 
culture supplies  him  with  means  to  pay  for  it)  it  may  as  well  be 
mentioned  in  the  schedule. 

And  now  after  these  introductory  remarks,  and  before  we 
proceed  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  my  farming  month  by  month,  I 
give  here  {vide  p.  36)  a  sketch  map  of  the  Ditchingham  farms, 
whereon  each  field  is  numbered  and  marked  with  the  various  areas. 
By  means  of  this  map  any  reader,  who  cares  to  trouble  to  do  so, 
can  trace  the  fate  of  each  individual  close  throughout  the  year,  and 
see  which  of  the  crops  succeed  and  which  of  them  fail.  The  book, 
I  trust,  will  tell  him  why  they  succeeded  and  why  they  failed. 

Next  follows  an  important  statement.  A  record  of  a  farm 
such  as  I  propose  would  have  little  practical  value  unless  the  reader 
were  informed  of  the  amount  of  capital  invested,  and  instructed 
generally  as  to  the  financial  position.  Therefore  I  print  here  a 
profit  and  loss  account  for  Bedingham  and  Ditchingham  since  I 
took  over  each  holding,  and  cash  accounts  showing  the  amount  of 
capital  invested. 

Cash  Account.     Alichaelmas,  1897 


Ditchingham. 

Dr. 

To 

Capital : 

£   s- 

d. 

Oct. 

1889 

1,000  0 

0 

'an. 
Jan. 

1890 

250  0 

0 

1895 

250  0 

0 

£  s.  d. 


1,500  o   o 
Less  paid  to 
Estate  Ac- 
count July 
2,  1897    .     .     200  o    o 

,  Balance  from  Profit  and 
Loss  Account    ,     .     . 


1,300  o 
54013 


By  Valuation  at  Michaelmas, 

£  '■^' 

Covenants    283  4  6 

Horses     ,     187  o  o 

Stock,  &c.    611  2  6 

Implements  145  o  o 

Corn  .     .     276  8  o 

,,  Cash  at  Bank  .     .     . 

,,  Mr.  Haggard's  ac- 
count, 1896''^  .     .     . 

,,  Mr.  Haggard's  ac- 
count, 1897  2  .     .     . 


Cr. 


,502  15  o 
228  17  7 

54  13  9 
54    7  3 


1,840  13  7I  1,840  13  7 

'  To  this  total  must  now  be  added  103/.  paid  last  November  for  valuation  on 
Baker's,  bringing  it  to  1,943/.  ^2^-  7^«  *  Since  paid. 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  ^  THE  FARMS  39 


1890 
189 1 
1892 

1893 
1894 

1895 
1896 
1897 


DiTCHINGHAM 

Profit  and  Loss  on  each  year 
Profit 


98     3     8 
62  II     I 


114  19     8 


Loss 


186  5 
252  13 

9 
2 

714  13 
173  19 

4 
9 

Net  profit  on  eight  years  .     .  540  13     7 

Cash  Account. 


Loss 
£    s-     d. 
140  17    S 


32  II  10 
o  10    6 


173  19    9 


Bedingham. 


Michaelmas^  1897 


Dr. 


To  Capital     .    .    .    .     .    700 


700 


By  Valuation  of  Live  and 
Dead  Stock,  Covenants, 
and  Corn,  Michaelmas, 

1897 

,,  Cash  at  Bank,  .  .  . 
,,  Mr.  Haggard's  account  1 
,,  Balance  (loss)      .     .     . 


Cr. 


655  17 

6  17 

20    6 

16  18 


700    o    o 


Bedingham 

Profit  and  Loss  ofi  each  year 

Profit 

£    s-     d. 

1895 — 

1896 26     5     8 

1897 75  19    3 


Net  loss  on  three  years 


Loss 
£    s-    d. 
19    3     5 


102    4  II 
16  18    6 


From  these  accounts  it  will  be  seen  that  in  my  three  years' 
farming  at  Bedingham  I  have  up  to  Michaelmas  1897  incurred  a 
net  loss  of  16/.  \Zs.  6d.  To  this  deficit,  however,  should  be  added 
loss  of  rent  at  say  10s.  per  acre  for  three  years — 153/.  (in  1868  it 
let  for  135/.  a  year  !),  and  loss  of  interest  on  700/.  at  5  per  cent, 
for  three  years — 105/.    So,  without  the  advantage  of  winning  a  daily 

'  Since  paid. 


40  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

livelihood  out  of  the  place,  as  a  farmer  is  supposed  to  do — at  any 
rate,  to  a  very  large  extent—  the  loss  on  this  farm  for  the  three 
years  is  274/.  i8j.  6d. 

When  we  come  to  the  Ditchingham  Farm  the  case  is  a  little 
better,  for,  as  the  statement  shows,  there  is  a  net  profit  on  eight  years' 
farming  of  540/.  135.  "jd.  But  here,  again,  things  are  not  so  good 
as  they  look.  Thus  the  rent  on  146  acres  (the  amount  of  my  own 
land  that  I  farm  in  this  parish,  for  the  rent  of  the  rest  appears  and 
is  included  in  the  accounts,  and  must  not  be  reckoned)  at  i/.  per 
acre  for  eight  years  amounts  to  1,168/.,  and  the  interest  at  5  per 
cent,  of  1,250/.  for  eight  years,  plus  the  interest  on  250/.  for  two 
and  a  half  years,  amounts  to  531/.  5^.,  just  about  the  net  profit 
shown.  Therefore,  again  without  allowing  anything  for  living, 
since,  together  with  the  cost  of  all  carting,  &c.,  every  article  I  have 
from  the  farm  is  religiously  paid  for  at  market  prices,  it  would  seem 
that  the  net  loss  for  the  eight  years  is  1,158/.  11^.  5^.  But  that  is 
not  all  of  it,  for  here  and  at  Bedingham  there  has  been  at  least 
500/.  expended  on  the  buildings,  or,  writing  off  the  200/.  paid  to 
the  estate  account  in  July  last  against  that  expenditure,  let  us  say 
300/.  This  brings  up  the  total  out-of-pocket  amount  to  1,458/. 
IIJ-.  5^.,  or,  adding  on  the  Bedingham  loss  of  274/.  i8j.  6d.,  to  a 
grand  total  of  1,733/.  9^-  ^i^- 

This  result  does  not  seem  encouraging  to  those  about  to  farm. 

Of  course,  however,  it  would  be  easy  to  pick  holes  in  these 
figures.  Thus  the  300/.  for  buildings  ought  to  go  to  capital 
account;  moreover,  at  Michaelmas  last  there  was  about  228/. 
17^-.  7^.  cash  in  bank.  Further,  the  valuations  at  that  date  about 
equal  the  total  of  cash  invested,  so  that,  theoretically,  if  the 
business  were  wound  up,  there  should  be  no  actual  loss  of  capital 
as  distinguished  from  interest.  It  may  be  objected  also  that  I 
have  no  right  to  reckon  on  a  rent ;  that  nowadays  in  these 
counties  rent  is  too  often  a  mere  ideal  which  cannot  be  grasped  ; 
and  no  doubt  when  I  took  the  farms  in  hand  this  was  the  case, 
for  its  condition  was  so  deplorable,  at  any  rate  at  Ditchingham, 
that  nobody  would  have  given  anything  for  the  land.     But  the 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  6-  THE  FARMS  41 

rents  suggested  are  modest  in  its  present  state,  and  could,  I  think, 
be  obtained. 

Still,  with  every  deduction  and  allowance,  the  loss  remains 
heavy,  although  I  think  I  may  say  that  the  holding  has  been 
farmed  with  economy  and  not  without  intelligence.  The  agri- 
cultural position  in  our  part  of  England,  however,  is  such  that 
unless  the  land  is  sound,  if  not  good,  and  in  heart  and  order, 
it  cannot  be  made  to  pay  at  the  prices  which  have  prevailed  for 
the  last  few  years,  that  is,  if  it  is  properly  done  by  and  honestly 
farmed  as  a  man  would  farm  his  own.  There  is  no  margin  left  for 
loss  or  for  a  mistake,  and,  as  everybody  reminds  us,  even  we  farmers 
make  mistakes  !  One  bit  of  bad  luck,  such  as  a  disease  among 
the  stock,  or  a  drought  or  a  flood,  will  swallow  all  the  profit. 

All  things  combine  against  the  great  British  industry  of 
farming,  because  that  industry,  in  our  circumstances,  cannot 
combine  to  protect  itself  One  man's  vote  is  as  good  as  that  of 
another,  therefore  the  labourers,  being  in  the  majority,  have  the 
majority  of  votes,  and  for  the  most  part  they  cannot  be  made  to 
see  that  their  interests  are  one  with  those  of  the  landowner  and 
the  farmer,  with  whom  they  must  stand  or  fall.  Often  enough, 
in  what  I  hold  to  be  their  blindness,  they  will  vote  for  those 
pledged  to  injure  these  interests  rather  than  for  those  pledged 
to  help  them.  Therefore  the  seven  millions  of  people  con- 
cerned in  agriculture  get  little  real  help  from  Governments  of 
either  party,  for  soft  words,  oratorical  tears,  and  Royal  Com 
missions  are  not  help.  They  get  little  help  because,  being  a 
house  divided  against  itself,  they  cannot  force  their  will  upon 
them,  and  turn  them  out  if  they  will  not  listen. 

Thus,  by  way  of  illustration,  without  going  into  the  vexed 
question  of  Protection,  if  we  who  are  interested  in  the  land  were 
the  citizens  of  any  other  country,  or  even  if  we  were  Irishmen, 
who  understand  how  to  deal  with  Governments,  should  we  be  so 
disproportionately  rated  and  taxed  as  we  are  still,  in  comparison 
with  the  burdens  laid  upon  personal  property,  or  should  we  be 
obliged  to  see  the  products  of  the  foreigner  carried  by  the  railway 


42  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

companies  at  easier  rates  than  our  own,  as,  whatever  the  letter  of 
the  law  may  be,  in  fact  they  are  ?  Or,  to  take  another  instance, 
for  the  want  of  a  simple  preventive  Act  should  we  be  forced  to 
stand  helpless  while  foreign  meat  is  sold  by  dishonest  butchers 
as  best  home-grazed  and  at  the  prices  which  home-grazed 
commands?  'Reduce  the  rents'  is  a  favourite  answer  from  a 
certain  section  of  politicians  to  all  the  complaints  of  farmers; 
but  as  one  who  both  pays  rent  and  farms  land  of  his  own,  I 
say  again  :  It  is  not  the  rent  that  crushes  us  ;  it  is  the  prices  we 
receive  for  our  produce,  and  the  unjust  taxation,  frauds  and  harsh 
dealing  of  which  we  are  the  victims. 

To  turn  from  these  lamentations  to  the  cause  of  them.  The 
statements  of  account  that  I  have  given  above  must  fill  any 
sympathetic  reader  with  awful  reflections  on  the  fate  of  those 
unfortunate  persons  who,  having  land  in  bad  condition  thrown 
upon  their  hands,  have  been  forced  to  borrow  money  to  farm  it. 
Then,  in  addition  to  the  various  outgoings  enumerated  above, 
there  would  be  five  per  cent,  to  the  bank  for  the  loan  of  the  capital, 
and  probably  another  five  per  cent,  or  so  to  meet  the  premiums  of 
the  insurance  which  the  bank  requires  as  extra  security  to  cover 
its  advance.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  working  of  a  300-acre 
farm  would  bring  any  but  a  rich  man  to  bankruptcy  in  ten  years. 
Happily,  however,  I  escaped  the  necessity  of  borrowing,  so  the 
loss  is  only  the  loss  of  possible  rent  and  interest,  of  which  neither 
might  have  been  realised.  Indeed,  the  capital  itself  might  per- 
haps have  been  invested  away  in  some  other  direction  ;  for  at 
least  remember  this,  O  reader — one  loses  money  more  slowly  in 
farming  than  in  any  other  fashion. 

After  some  experience,  at  my  present  age,  I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that,  were  I  a  rich  man,  there  are  only  two  things 
in  which  I  would  invest  my  wealth  at  prevailing  prices :  land 
(including  farming  on  a  very  large  scale),  and  the  various  forms 
of  life  insurance.  Perhaps  Chippendale  furniture,  discreetly 
purchased,  might  be  added  to  the  list,  but  this  is  a  business  for 
the  instructed  only.     If  any  reader  of  this  book  will  act  upon  the 


BEDINGHAM,  DITCHINGHAM  ^  THE  FARMS  43 

above  advice  (even  should  he  go  wrong  on  the  Chippendale),  it 
will,  I  believe,  prove  the  most  profitable  work  to  him  for  which  he 
ever  paid  money.  Yet,  under  the  existing  conditions  of  agricul- 
tural affairs,  in  advising  the  purchase  of  East  Anglian  land  at  any 
price,  on  reflection,  I  feel  that  I  may  be  wrong. 

And  now,  having  sufficiently  contemplated  the  cloud,  let  us 
look  at  its  silver  lining.  If  I  am  somewhat  out  of  pocket  over 
my  farms  for  the  period  that  they  have  been  in  hand,  it  is  largely 
due  to  exceptional  circumstances,  such  as  the  state  of  the  land 
when  I  took  it  over  that  necessitated  an  unusual  outlay,  and, 
so  far  as  the  light  soil  is  concerned,  the  persistent  droughts  of 
the  last  few  years,  which  have  made  it  very  unproductive.  More- 
over, it  would  seem  that  at  last  the  corner  has  been  turned, 
seeing  that  on  separate  balance  sheets  struck  for  1897,  by  which 
I  mean  balance  sheets  that  do  not  carry  on  the  trading  losses 
of  earlier  years,  a  profit  was  earned  on  the  Bedingham  Farm  of 
75/.  195.  3^.,  and  on  the  Ditchingham  Farm  of  252/.  135'.  2d. 
It  must,  however,  be  understood  that  this  money  remains  in  the 
land — one  cannot  draw  it  out  and  spend  it ;  though,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  substantial  cash  balance  at  the  bank,  over  and 
above  the  amount  originally  belonging  to  the  farm.  Moreover, 
there  is  now  a  total  of  sixty-two  acres  of  my  own  land  laid  down  in 
permanent  pasture,  thirty-eight  and  a  half  at  Ditchingham,  and 
twenty-three  and  a  half  at  Bedingham,  all  of  which,  in  time,  as 
I  trust,  will  make  good  sound  meadows,  worth  from  a  pound  to 
thirty  shillings  the  acre. 

Also  this  farm,  which  eight  years  ago  was  in  so  desperate  a 
condition,  is  to-day,  with  the  exception  of  certain  docks  in  the 
marsh  meadows,  in  good  heart,  and  where  necessary  pipe-drained. 
At  Bedingham,  too,  the  tall  fences  that  I  found  there  have  gone 
under  the  soil  in  the  shape  of  bush-drains,  and  the  land  generally 
is  not  in  such  a  state  that  I  should  be  ashamed  for  a  farming 
friend  to  walk  over  it,  though  there  remain  jobs  to  be  done  to 
the  buildings.  Notably  a  new  stable  is  wanted,  but  the  present  old 
hovel  still  serves  its  purpose,  and  must  hang  for  a  few  more  years. 


44  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

So  on  the  whole  I  face  the  new  farming  year  with  a  somewhat 
lighter  heart,  although  it  is  true  that  I  am  again  hampered  with  over 
fifty  acres  of  foul,  half-starved  land  on  Baker's  Farm.  There  is  a 
more  hopeful  feeling  in  the  air,  but  whether  the  season  will  end  in 
prosperity  and,  glorious  possibility,  something  in  the  bank  that 
can  actually  be  drawn  and  spent,  or  with  a  swollen  deficit,  I  know 
not.  The  reader,  if  such  a  man  there  be  who  is  willing  to  ac- 
company me  from  spring  to  winter  in  the  adventures  of  the  year, 
can  form  his  own  opinion.  At  least,  I  promise  him  that  the 
whole  truth  shall  be  told ;  nothing  shall  be  glozed  over,  or  made 
to  seem  better  than  in  reality  it  is. 

As  I  write,  the  fear  takes  me  that  such  a  journal  as  I  propose 
of  agricultural  and  countryside  events,  and  of  reflections  arising  out 
of  them,  may  prove  monotonous  ;  but  if  so,  doubtless  it  will  be  my 
skill  that  is  to  seek,  since  nature  is  never  monotonous.  Even  the 
history  of  a  single  hedgerow  daily  recorded  would  be  full  of  interest 
to  those  who  cared  about  hedgerows.  But  if  my  artless  tale  is 
dull,  I  trust  that  to  some  extent  it  may  prove  useful  to  those  who 
are  weary  of  text-books  and  yet  wish  to  learn  something  about 
rural  ways  and  life  upon  the  land  in  this  era  of  dreadful  depression, 
when  the  fate  of  British  agriculture  hangs  quivering  in  the  balance. 
At  the  worst,  a  year  spent  moving  in  fancy  from  field  to  field  and 
watching  all  that  lives  and  grows  therein,  with  the  wind  and  the 
wet  in  his  face,  and  the  smell  of  the  earth  and  the  corn  in  his 
nostrils,  can  scarcely  be  unwholesome  to  the  town-held  reader. 


45 


JANUARY 

January  i,  1898. — Never  within  my  recollection  have  we  ex- 
perienced so  mild  and  open  a  winter  as  that  of  the  year  which  died 
yesterday.  There  has  been  no  rain,  and  until  the  24th  of  last 
month,  when  it  froze  for  a  few  hours,  practically  no  frost,  nor  in  my 
recollection  has  the  land  for  a  single  day  been  too  hard  or  too 
wet  to  plough.  Christmas  Day,  with  one  exception,  was  the  most 
beautiful  that  I  can  remember  in  this  country.  That  exception 
was  a  certain  Christmas  five  or  six  and  twenty  years  gone,  which 
I  spent  at  my  father's  house  in  another  part  of  Norfolk.  There 
had  been  a  heavy  snowfall  during  the  preceding  night,  followed 
by  frost,  so  that  in  the  morning  the  snow  lay  inches  thick  upon 
the  fir-boughs,  bending  them  down  in  deep  arches  till  they  almost 
touched  the  earth,  while  the  sun  shone  upon  the  glittering  surface 
of  the  white  world  till  the  eyes  ached  to  look  at  it.  One  cften 
hears  of  a  mad  hare,  but  this  long  dead  Christmas  Day  was  the 
only  occasion  upon  which  I  ever  saw  one,  for  1  recollect  that  as  we 
were  walking  to  church  we  perceived  a  hare  tearing  round  and 
round  in  a  circle  through  the  snow  in  a  neighbouring  field. 
Being  young  in  those  days,  of  course  I  went  to  catch  it,  and 
succeeded.  On  examination  the  creature  showed  no  sign  of 
having  been  shot  or  otherwise  injured,  so  I  can  only  suppose  that 
it  was  suffering  from  some  sort  of  a  fit. 

This  last  Christmas  Day  differed  from  that  which  I  have  de- 
scribed, since  there  was  no  snow  and  only  a  few  degrees  of  frost. 
But  after  its  own  fashion  it  was  as  beautiful,  for  in  the  morning 
every  branchlet  of  the  trees  showed  thick  with  a  wonderful  white 


46  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

rime,  more  perfect  than  any  I  have  seen  of  late,  because  of  the 
extraordinary  calmness  of  the  air.  By  the  time  that  we  came  out 
of  church  this  rime  had  melted  in  the  bright  sunshine,  but  the 
day  remained  frosty  and  windless.  The  best  part  of  it,  however, 
was  the  sunset  as  seen  from  the  Bungay  Road — a  huge  ball  of  fire 
that  vanished  gradually  behind  a  deep  background  of  spreading 
wreaths  of  vapour,  smoky  red  in  hue,  roll  upon  roll  of  them 
covering  the  western  sky.  Against  this  sombre  and  glorious  pall 
the  trees  in  the  foreground  stood  out  nakedly,  every  bough,  and 
indeed  each  separate  twig,  outlined  and  accentuated  with  fire,  as 
in  the  morning  they  had  been  outlined  and  accentuated  by  frost. 
Then,  to  complete  the  picture,  in  the  clear  blue-black  of  the  heavens 
above  hung  the  crescent  moon.  Altogether  it  was  an  evening  to 
be  remembered. 

That  night  promised  sharper  cold,  but  the  promise  was  not  to 
be  fulfilled,  for  on  Sunday  the  26th  the  frost  began  to  break  and 
the  moon  came  ringed  into  a  clear  sky.  Moreover,  I  heard  curlew 
calling  over  Bungay  Common — it  is  impossible  for  anyone  who 
knows  it  to  mistake  that  wild  and  melancholy  note,  although  I 
cannot  recall  hearing  it  here  before.  This  I  took  as  a  sign  of  bad 
weather ;  nor  was  I  wrong,  for  on  the  morrow  the  frost  had  de- 
parted and  half  a  gale  blew  from  the  sou'-west,  which  on  the  30th 
developed  into  a  full  gale.  But  like  some  worn-out  old  man,  the 
year  died  quietly.  I  was  shooting  pheasants  in  Tindale  Wood  on 
the  31st,  and  there  could  not  have  been  a  better  day  for  the  pur- 
pose of  that  pastime. 

As  the  old  year  died  so  the  new  year  was  born,  in  peace  and 
beauty,  a  mild  southerly  wind  barely  stirring  the  black  trees.  There 
is  only  one  plough  going  on  the  farm  to-day,  turning  up  the  five  acres 
of  glebe  land.  No.  40  on  the  plan.  This  piece,  together  with  its 
companions,  Nos.  38  and  39,  is  very  stony  and  light,  the  sort  of 
land  that  would  be  the  better  for  rain  three  days  a  week.  Last 
year  it  and  No.  39  were  clover  layers,  but  owing  to  the  persistent 
drought  the  crop  they  yielded  was  poor  indeed.  I  remember 
finding  patches  of  them  at  times  absolutely  brown  and  shrivelled, 


JANUARY  47 

as  though  they  had  been  exposed  to  the  heat  of  a  fire.  Now  they 
are  being  ploughed  for  oats. 

The  ploughman,  Peachey,  tells  me  that  on  this  land,  where  the 
friction  against  stones  is  so  constant,  the  share  of  the  plough  (not 
the  breast)  only  lasts  about  a  week.  In  heavy  land  it  will  last 
from  three  weeks  to  a  month.  The  breast  of  a  plough,  or  that 
part  of  it  which  turns  the  furrow,  ought  to  wear  from  one  to  two 
years,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  soil. 

To-day  two  carts  are  carrying  refuse  from  the  undrained 
town  of  Bungay  to  be  scattered  on  that  part  of  the  nine  acres  of 
land.  No.  23,  which  is  coming  for  root,  or  on  so  much  of  it  as  we 
can  spare  time  and  horses  to  cover.  We  have  been  at  the  task 
for  nearly  a  week,  sometimes  with  two  and  sometimes  with  three 
carts,  and,  I  think,  have  spread  about  fifty  loads  upon  the  root 
land.  This  compost,  disagreeable  as  it  is  in  many  ways  and  mixed 
with  troublesome  stuff,  such  as  old  tins  and  broken  glass,  is  the 
best  manure  which  I  have  ever  used ;  but  I  think  that  to  get  its 
full  value  it  should  be  spread  upon  the  land  and  ploughed  in 
at  once,  leaving  it  to  decompose  beneath  the  surface.  I  adopted 
this  plan  last  year  on  the  piece  of  rootland  at  All  Hallows  Farm, 
No.  33,  and  with  the  most  excellent  results.  The  field  is  small,  but, 
notwithstanding  the  drought,  the  piece  of  beet  which  resulted  was 
the  finest  that  I  have  yet  grown.  The  cost  of  this  manure  is 
about  two  shillings  the  load  as  it  lies  upon  the  heap,  and  I  sup- 
pose that  the  carting  would  come  to  as  much  more.  Against  this 
expense,  however,  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  spares  the  farm- 
yard, upon  which  the  calls  are  heavy  and  continuous ;  also  for  a 
root  crop  I  would  rather  use  it  than  any  expensive  artificial 
dressing  on  the  market. 

January  2. — To-day  being  Sunday  I  have  confined  my  farm- 
ing operations  to  looking  over  the  young  stock  in  the  yard.     One 
of  the  calves  there  is  the  first-born  of  a  heifer,  and  therefore 
•doomed  to  die.     Hood,  my  bailiff,  a  man  of  strong  opinions,  is 
convinced  that  it  is  useless  to  keep  the  first  calves  of  heifers, 


48  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

which,  as  he  alleges,  always  grow  up  weak  and  puny.  In  vain 
have  I  pointed  out  that  this  is  not  the  case  with  the  offspring 
of  other  mammals,  beginning  with  man.  His  opinion  remains 
unshaken,  but  I  should  much  like  to  learn  whether  it  is  based 
upon  any  ascertained  fact.  Once  I  made  the  experiment  here 
under  the  following  circumstances.  When  I  began  to  farm  I 
determined  to  start  a  small  herd  of  pedigree  red  polls,  and  with 
this  view  bought  a  couple  of  in-calf  heifers  at  the  sale  of  a  Suffolk 
herd.  They  were  beautiful  animals,  but  rather  smally  made  and 
remarkable  for  their  fine  mottled  hides.  One  of  them  turned  out 
to  be  barren  and  was  fatted,  but  the  other  in  due  course  produced 
a  cow-calf,  which  Hood  was  most  anxious  to  fat  and  sell  to  the 
butcher.  Indeed,  he  would  have  done  so  had  not  Mr.  Simpson  dis- 
covered his  purpose  and  told  him  that  the  creature  was  too  valu- 
able. In  time  this  calf  grew  up,  and  is  now  a  middle-aged  cow,  and 
a  very  good  one.  It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  she  is  some- 
what small-boned  and  finely  built,  but  then  so  is  her  mother, 
and  so,  I  expect,  were  all  the  herd.  Indeed,  I  believe  that  this 
story  about  heifers'  calves  is  more  of  a  superstition  than  a 
reality. 

January  6. — There  has  been  little  to  chronicle  this  week. 
Yesterday,  Wednesday,  it  rained  without  ceasing  at  night  from  a 
singularly  clear  sky,  but  to-day  is  very  fine  and  mild.  I  walked 
down  to  the  farm  called  Baker's,  which  I  took  over  last  November, 
and  found  two  ploughs  going  in  the  eight-acre  cottage  field. 
No.  43  on  the  plan,  which  is  being  made  ready  for  spring  beans 
and  pease.  Thence  I  went  down  the  lane  to  the  brook  pasture. 
No.  46,  to  see  the  man  who  was  engaged  in  clearing  out  the 
dykes ;  a  task,  by  the  way,  that  cannot  often  be  undertaken  at  this 
time  of  the  year. 

Of  all  the  forms  of  manual  labour,  I  think  that  this  dyke-draw- 
ing must  be  about  the  hardest,  since  the  strain  upon  the  muscles 
of  the  arms  and  back,  continuously  endured  for  a  long  day's  work 
of  lifting  heavy  forkfuls  of  mud  and  weeds,  cannot  but  be  great. 


JANUARY  49 

Indeed,  I  suspect  that  any  man,  however  strong,  who  was  not 
accustomed  to  this  kind  of  toil,  would  be  utterly  exhausted  long 
before  his  eight  or  ten  hours  were  finished. 

In  the  lane  leading  to  this  meadow  I  found  the  wildflower 
called  green-arrow  in  bloom  in  the  hedgerow  ;  also,  nestling  under 
the  shelter  of  the  bank  and  white-thorn  roots,  the  bright  green 
leaves  of  the  vigorous  black  parsley  {Smy7-nhim  Olusatrum).  For 
years  I  have  noticed  that  such  signs  of  coming  spring  show  first 
in  this  lane,  and  very  welcome  is  the  sight  of  the  shining 
leaf  of  that  weed  after  the  long  and  dreary  months  of  winter. 
The  reason  that  vegetation  appears  here  so  soon  is  that  at  this 
spot  the  fall  of  the  land  is  steep,  and  the  rain  of  hundreds,  or  very 
possibly  of  thousands,  of  years,  has  by  degrees  lowered  the  road- 
way— once,  no  doubt,  a  bridle  track — till  at  places  it  lies  eight  or 
nine  feet  below  the  surface  level  of  the  fields  that  border  it. 
Therefore  the  banks  are  very  sheltered,  and  those  herbs  and  flower 
roots  that  nestle  in  them  can  thrust  out  their  new  growths  a  month 
before  their  companions  unprotected  by  the  bank  dare  even  to  wake 
from  the  winter  sleep.  This  year,  however,  vegetation  is  at  least 
three  weeks  before  its  time;  thus,  on  my  way  home  I  noticed 
bees  working  busily  at  the  hives  in  the  farm  orchard,  and  by  the 
east  windows  of  this  house  I  found  the  Pyrus  Japonica  in  bud 
and  bloom.  This,  I  think,  is  something  of  a  record  for  Norfolk 
on  the  6th  of  January. 

January  7. — To-day  was  my  rent  audit.  It  is  held  at  an  inn 
in  Bungay,  where  the  tenants  of  this  estate,  which,  although  not 
large,  is  scattered,  assemble  once  a  year  to  pay  their  rent  and  dine. 
Rent  audits  of  late  years,  in  the  Eastern  Counties,  have  been 
something  like  the  play  of  '  Hamlet '  without  the  Prince  of  Den- 
mark ;  that  is  to  say,  their  first  cause,  the  rent,  has  been,  if  not 
conspicuous  by  its  absence,  at  least  very  painfully  diminished. 
The  accounts  of  any  Norfolk  estate  for  the  year  1897  are  indeed 
a  melancholy  document  if  compared  with  those,  let  us  say,  of  the 
year  1867.     This  property  is  no  exception. 

£ 


50  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

I  doubt  even  if  it  returns  in  net  profit  more  than  a  third  of  what 
it  produced  thirty  years  ago.  Indeed,  in  some  ways  its  case  is 
particularly  unfortunate,  seeing  that  it  is  purely  agricultural  in 
character,  and  being,  as  I  have  said,  dispersed,  brings  in  nothing 
in  the  way  of  shooting  rents,  on  which  nowadays  so  many  landlords 
are  compelled  to  exist,  together  with  the  proceeds  of  the  letting 
of  the  Hall,  if  they  are  fortunate  enough  to  find  some  successful 
South  African  or  business  man  to  hire  the  mansion  house. 

In  truth,  few  people,  except  those  who  are  more  or  less  behind 
the  scenes,  know  the  straits  to  which  the  owners  of  land,  and 
especially  of  entailed  land,  have  been  put  of  late  years,  at  any 
rate  in  East  Anglia.  Even  if  they  are  totally  unencumbered, 
most  of  such  properties  barely  produce  enough  to  pay  outgoings 
and  keep  up  '  the  place '  upon  a  very  modest  scale.  And  if  they 
are  encumbered,  as  is  the  case  in  eight  out  of  ten  of  them,  either 
by  mortgages  or  with  jointures  and  charges  in  favour  of  younger 
children  executed  on  a  scale  of  liberality  dictated  by  prosperous 
times,  then  the  position  is  bad  indeed.  In  nearly  every  instance 
their  history  is  the  same — a  long  and  pitiful  struggle  on  the  part  of 
the  sinking  family,  then  at  last  foreclosure,  ruin,  and  sale  at  any 
sacrifice.  Who  does  not  know  cases  of  parishes  where  the  property 
has  been  held  for  centuries  by  a  single  family  ?  But  long  as  their 
day  may  be,  at  length  it  comes  to  an  end,  and  the  lands  which 
they  owned  from  father  to  son  for  so  many  generations,  the  home 
that  their  forefathers  built  and  the  woods  which  they  planted,  are 
put  up  to  auction  and  sold  for  whatever  they  will  fetch.  Well,  as 
it  has  been  with  them,  so  in  the  fulness  of  appointed  time  it  shall 
be  with  those  who  supplant  them,  for  against  this  ultimate  fate 
the  hoarding  of  moneys  and  the  laying  of  field  to  field  are  no 
sure  defence. 

Soon  or  late  the  stock,  like  the  individual,  must  decay  and 
vanish,  and  no  doubt  it  is  all  for  the  good  of  the  State  that  the 
bankrupt  family  should  be  replaced  in  due  season  by  the  family 
with  a  large  bank  balance.  Yet  to  my  mind  there  is  something 
infinitely  pathetic  about  the  process — this  sad  sequence  of  the  death 


JANUARY  51 

and  departure  of  a  race.  To  understand  the  thing  and  appreciate  it 
fully  it  is  necessary  to  take  the  registers  of  any  given  parish,  and 
to  read  them  through  from  their  beginnings  about  the  year  1550. 
At  that  beginning,  in  such  cases  as  I  have  instanced,  we  shall 
already  find  the  family  in  possession,  for  here  are  entries  of  their 
births,  their  marriages,  their  burials — nearly  all  of  them  make 
these  three  formal  appearances  in  that  record  which  no  one  studies 
once  in  a  century. 

And  so  it  goes  on  through  the  long  generations,  this  tale  of 
the  considerable  dead — so  important  in  their  own  day,  looming 
so  large  for  a  while  upon  the  little  world  of  the  village  which  they 
ruled,  and  now  so  utterly  forgot  that  their  bones  are  tossed  about, 
as  I  have  seen  happen,  by  the  man  from  London  who  fits  the  hot- 
water  pipes  in  the  parish  church,  unrecognised,  uncared-for,  and 
unknown— till  at  length  we  come  to  the  entries  of  the  baptisms  of 
the  past  owners,  still  living,  perhaps,  but  '  gone  away,  leaving  no 
address,'  as  they  say  on  letters  that  follow  us  from  forsaken  lodg- 
ings. The  time  of  their  race  has  come ;  they  and  the  soil  that 
bred  them — yes,  the  very  earth,  chemically  changed  indeed,  but 
still  the  earth  of  which  the  bodies  of  those  of  them  who  survive  are 
built  up — have  been  divorced  for  ever,  unless  indeed  they  creep,  or 
rather  are  carried,  back  to  claim  the  hospitality  of  burial  in  some 
ancestral  vault,  as  those  possessing  a  family  grave  have  the  right 
to  do.  In  this  particular  the  villager  is  more  fortunate  than  his 
dispossessed  and  ancestral  lord.  Having  nothing  to  lose,  he  loses 
nothing,  but  from  generation  to  generation  Hves  on  where  his 
fathers  lived,  earning  his  daily  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  daily 
toil.  Indeed,  if  all  the  truth  were  known,  in  the  case  of  most 
vanished  families,  doubtless  the  race,  or  some  part  of  it,  still 
survives  in  him,  for  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  in  past  ages 
at  any  rate,  the  blood  of  our  English  villagers  was  curiously 
mixed. 

For  the  benefit  of  those  unacquainted  with  the  function  I 
will  describe  a  rent  audit  of  the  local  type.  The  ceremony  begins 
about  twelve  o'clock,  when  the  agent  takes  his  seat  in  a  small  room 

&2 


52  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

in  the  King's  Head  at  Bungay,  and  makes  ready  his  papers  and 
book  of  printed  receipts.  To  him  presently  enters  a  tenant  who 
produces — or  does  not  produce,  as  the  case  may  be — the  rent  he 
owes.  Also  in  these  times  he  generally  takes  the  opportunity  to 
point  out  that  a  further  reduction  upon  the  attenuated  sum  payable 
is  absolutely  necessary  to  enable  him  to  live.  In  most  instances 
his  story  is  true  enough,  although  the  landlord  could  wish  that  he 
would  show  as  great  a  readiness  to  call  attention  to  the  fact 
whenever  times  or  prices  improve.  Such  an  instance  of  almost 
superhuman  virtue  has  just  come  to  my  notice.  A  tenant  of  a 
relative  of  mine  in  this  neighbourhood  appeared  the  other  day  and 
paid  his  rent,  plus  an  extra  sum  of  9/.  Being  asked  for  what 
the  9/.  was  owing,  he  answered  that  when  he  took  the  farm  he 
came  to  a  verbal  understanding  with  its  owner,  since  deceased, 
that  if  ever  times  improved  his  rent  should  be  increased.  There 
was  no  written  statement  to  this  effect,  and  the  other  party  *to  the 
arrangement  can  no  longer  bear  witness  to  it ;  but  as  this  pearl 
among  tenants  considered  that  times  had  improved  with  him  to 
the  exact  extent  of  9/.,  he  handed  over  that  amount  unasked. 
*  Comment  is  superfluous.' 

In  the  old  days  it  was  customary  to  discharge  the  rent  in  coin,  a 
practice  which  some  tenants  still  keep  up,  but  now  most  of  them 
have  a  banking  account  and  pay  by  cheque.  From  the  sum 
due  is  deducted  the  amount  disbursed  out  of  pocket  by  the 
tenant,  but  properly  chargeable  to  the  landlord,  on  account  of 
rates  and  taxes  or  repairs.  Then  the  cheque  is  drawn  out,  often 
slowly  and  with  labour,  unless,  indeed,  it  has  been  brought  ready 
prepared,  in  which  case  the  agent  gives  a  cross  cheque  for  the 
difference,  plus  any  allowance  that  may  have  been  agreed  upon. 
Next,  having  been  offered  and  drunk  a  glass  of  sherry,  that  tenant 
departs  with  a  sense  of  duty  done,  a  lighter  pocket,  and  the  in- 
struction to  send  up  Mr.  So-and-so. 

Of  course  there  are  tenants  and  tenants.  There  is  the 
specious  and  horsey  young  man  with  a  gHb  tongue,  from  which 
flow  reasons  innumerable  why  he  should  not  pay  his  just  debts,  or 


JANUAR  Y  53 

plausible  explanations  as  to  how  he  came  to  be  found  selling  straw 
off  the  farm.  This  sort  is  at  one  end  of  the  scale.  At  the  other 
stands  the  silver-haired  old  gentleman  who  has  been  a  tenant  on 
the  estate  for  fifty  years,  and  all  that  time  has  never  failed  to  meet 
his  rent.  To  such  a  one  to  'get  behind'  is  a  real  grief;  indeed 
I  have  seen  a  man  of  this  stamp  almost  break  into  tears  because 
the  times  had  at  last  proved  too  much  for  him.  The  most- 
remarkable  tenant  that  ever  I  had  to  do  with,  however,  was  an  old 
gentleman,  now  dead,  who  had  occupied  a  farm  belonging  to  this 
estate  for  no  less  than  seventy-seven  years.  The  time  seems 
long,  but  he  was  born  in  a  certain  room  in  that  homestead, 
for  seventy-seven  years  he  slept  every  night  of  his  life  in  the 
room,  and  there  finally  he  died.  He  was  a  man  who  drove  about 
the  country  a  good  deal  to  markets  and  other  places,  but,  at 
any  rate  during  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  no  earthly  consideration 
would  have  induced  him  to  be  away  from  home  for  a  single 
night.  Indeed,  the  dread  of  such  a  thing  obtained  a  complete 
mastery  of  his  mind,  and  I  believe  that  on  one  or  two  occasions, 
when  accident  detained  him  at  a  distance,  he  spared  no  expense, 
and  journeyed  incessantly  to  reach  his  farm  before  the  following 
dawn.  In  these  days  of  frequent  and  distant  travel  it  is  cer- 
tainly curious  to  hear  of  a  man  of  some  position  who  has  slept 
in  a  single  house  for  seventy-seven  years,  but  among  the  lower 
classes  such  cases  are  not  exceptional.  Thus,  a  few  years  ago, 
one  day  when  I  chanced  to  be  at  a  village  called  Spexhall, 
about  six  miles  from  Bungay,  where  I  have  a  farm,  I  lost  my  way 
in  a  lane  and  asked  a  labouring  man  to  show  it  to  me.  He  proved 
almost  as  uncertain  about  it  as  I  was  myself,  which  puzzled  me 
till  I  discovered  that,  although  he  must  have  been  sixty  years  old 
and  had  lived  in  Spexhall  all  his  life,  he  had  never  yet  visited 
Bungay,  a  few  miles  from  his  door. 

When  the  tenants  have  been  interviewed,  or  most  of  them, 
dinner  is  announced,  about  three  o'clock  generally,  and  everybody 
adjourns  to  a  long,  old-fashioned  room.  Here  the  landlord  takes 
the  head  of  the  table,  and  the  agent  the  foot,  while  the  tenants 


54  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

range  themselves  in  solemn  lines  on  either  side,  in  order  of 
seniority  and  social  precedence.  Then  grace  is  said  and  the  meal 
begins ;  and  an  excellent  meal  it  is,  by  the  way,  though  perhaps  it 
would  not  recommend  itself  to  the  guests  at  a  London  dinner 
party.     Here  is  the  menu,  which  never  varies  from  year  to  year  : 

Clear  Ox-tail  Soup. 

Fried  Soles.  Boiled  Cod. 

Roast  Beef.  Boiled  Mutton. 

Chicken  and  Tongue. 

Roast  Turkey. 

(For  this  festival  is  always  celebrated  early  in  January. ) 

Plum  Pudding.  Mince  Pies. 

Cheese. 

Beer,  Port,  and  Sherry. 

Such  is  the  feast,  most  admirably  cooked  in  the  good  old  English 
fashion  with  the  old  English  accessories,  and  it  is  one  to  which 
hungry  men  who  have  eaten  nothing  since  the  morning  certainly 
do  justice. 

After  the  meal  is  finished  glasses  are  filled  and  the  landlord 
proposes  'The  Queen,'  which  is  loyally  drunk,  but  in  silence,  as 
though  to  her  Majesty's  memory.  Then  comes  a  solemn  pause, 
till  the  largest  tenant  present  at  the  feast — as  regards  his  holding, 
not  his  person — his  eyes  fixed  sternly  upon  vacancy,  rises  and 
proposes  the  health  of  the  landlord  in  a  few  brief  but  kindly 
sentences. 

Another  pause  and  the  landlord  rises  to  reply.  How  well  he 
knows  that  speech  !  It  begins  invariably  with  a  solemn  wail  or 
lament  over  the  shocking  bad  times,  which,  as  a  general  rule,  he 
is  obliged  to  confess  are  even  worse  than  they  were  at  the  last 
gathering.  Then,  while  his  audience  shake  their  heads  and  sigh, 
he  rises  to  a  more  cheerful  note  and  talks  of  the  inherent  pluck 
and  nobility  of  the  character  of  Englishmen,  which,  as  he  firmly 
believes,  will,  if  persisted  in,  enable  them  in  the  end  to  put  up  the 
price  of  corn — how,  he  prefers  not  to  specify.     He  also  discourses 


JANUARY  55 

hopefully  of  signs  of  better  fortune  upon  the  horizon  of  the 
year,  if  he  can  find  any,  and  points  out  (which  is  perfectly  true) 
that  the  interests  of  the  landlord,  the  tenant,  and  the  labourer, 
and  indeed  of  all  who  live  by  the  land,  are  one  interest,  whatever 
agitators  and  mischief-makers,  may  say  to  the  contrary.  Then  he 
gives  some  account  of  the  farming  of  whatever  country  he  may 
last  have  visited,  America,  or  Iceland,  or  Egypt,  or  the  Hebrides, 
or  Mexico.  This  is  generally  the  most  popular  part  of  the  speech, 
as  there  is  a  slight  novelty  about  it,  the  rest  being  somewhat  of  a 
formula.  Finally  he  ends  with  the  best  peroration  that  occurs  to 
him  and  resumes  his  seat  amidst  the  jingling  of  glasses,  to  rise 
again  presently  and  propose  the  health  of  the  agent,  to  whose 
many  virtues  he  delicately  alludes. 

Next  the  agent  replies,  paying  him  back  full  measure  and 
running  over  in  the  coin  of  compliment,  and  exhorting  the 
tenants  to  make  up  their  minds  that  the  bad  times  are  done  with, 
and  to  pay  their  rent  like  men  and  Britons.  Finally  he  ends  by 
proposing  their  healths,  calling  on  two  of  them  to  respond.  This 
does  not  take  long,  for  the  average  farmer  is  no  great  speaker, 
and  when  the  last  of  them  sits  down  with  a  sigh  of  relief  the 
oratorical  programme  is  exhausted. 

Then  the  songs  begin — the  pipes,  long  clay  churchwardens, 
have  been  lit  already.  These  songs  are  generally  three  in  number, 
and  always  the  same.  One,  a  very  long  one,  is  of  a  local  character, 
for  it  describes  the  glories  of  Bungay,  the  chorus  at  the  end  of 
each  verse  being,  '  For  old  Bungay  is  a  wonderful  town.'  Another 
is  a  melancholy  ditty  descriptive  of  the  ills  of  life  and  the 
dangers  and  disasters  that  beset  each  profession ;  even  the  lawyer, 
who,  so  says  the  song,  is  invariably  rich  and  happy  in  every  other 
way,  must  beware  of  the  spite  of  Fate,  since,  while  he  is  comfort- 
ably fleecing  his  clients,  his  clerk  '  is  a-kissing  of  his  wife.'  The 
third  song  is  of  a  patriotic  nature,  and  has  for  a  refrain  some- 
thing about  'twisting  the  lion's  tail.'  Perhaps  it  was  written  in 
America. 

While  the  sound   of  music  lingers  still  the  agent  rises  and, 


56  A    FARMER'S    YEAR 

going  to  the  door,  beckons  mysteriously  at  some  individual  whose 
rent  is  yet  to  pay.  This  is  generally  the  signal  for  the  departure 
of  the  landlord,  and  so  far  as  he  is  concerned  another  rent  audit 
is  gathered  to  the  many  which  he  remembers  in  the  past. 

This  year  some  of  the  tenants  were  absent,  from  death  and 
other  causes.  Of  one  of  those  who  did  not  appear  a  good  story  is 
told,  a  true  one  as  I  believe.  Physically  a  splendid  man  and  very 
powerful,  it  is  said  that  he  can  do,  and  does,  as  much  hard  work 
as  anyone  in  the  county  Also  he  is  an  early  riser  and  hates  to 
waste  time.  Normally  he  breakfasts  at  five  o'clock  off  a  pound  and 
a  half  of  cold  pork,  but  on  one  occasion,  as  he  had  to  start  away 
at  half-past  three  on  the  following  morning,  he  determined  that  he 
would  not  spend  any  time  over  breakfast.  Feeling,  however,  that 
he  would  need  his  usual  amount  of  nourishment,  he  overcame  the 
difficulty  by  eating  his  supper,  waiting  half  an  hour,  and  then  break- 
fasting on  the  fixed  ration  of  pork  before  he  went  to  bed.  He  him- 
self admits,  however,  that  the  experiment  did  not  succeed,  since, 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  his  digestion  rose  in  violent  rebellion. 

By  the  way,  after  dinner  one  of  the  tenants  kindly  fetched 
from  the  shop  of  a  neighbouring  saddler  for  my  inspection  an 
ancient  bridle  that  had  been  found  in  a  loft.  This  bridle  has  its 
date  of  manufacture,  1722,  stamped  upon  it,  and  the  leather,  which 
remains  in  perfect  preservation,  is  most  beautifully  worked,  while 
rising  from  the  head-band  is  a  ball-shaped  crest  of  red  wool. 
Evidently  this  headpiece  was  part  of  the  harness  used  upon  the  fore 
horse  of  a  team  on  grand  occasions,  such  as  a  journey  to  Bungay 
fair.  I  had  never  before  seen  a  bridle  so  old  or  so  elaborately 
ornamented. 

An  interesting  conversation  was  started  at  dinner  as  to  the 
storage  of  beet,  and  nearly  all  present  declared  that  roots  which  are 
placed  in  the  hale  dry,  ferment  much  more  quickly  than  if  heaped 
there  wet.     This  seems  curious,  but  I  believe  it  to  be  true. 

Jatmary  8. — My  first  two  lambs  were  born  to-day.  When  I 
began  to  keep  sheep  last  year,  before  which  we  had  not  sufficient 


JANUARY  57 

grass  lands  to  run  them  on  and  leave  enough  for  a  herd  of  cows, 
I  started  with  about  forty  black-faced  Suffolk  ewes  in  lamb  to  a 
Southdown  ram.  These  lambs  did  exceedingly  well ;  I  remember 
that  I  sold  the  first  lot  of  them  at  Easter  for  about  thirty  shillings 
a  head,  and  all  the  rest  were  fatted  up  and  disposed  of  during  the 
summer  at  reasonable  prices.  Indeed,  we  had  good  luck  with 
them  throughout,  for  I  think  that  only  one  died ;  also  I  lost  an 
ewe  from  inflammation  of  the  lungs,  but  none  during  the  lambing. 
This  year  I  took  a  fancy  to  try  some  Southdowns,  and  bought 
about  a  score  of  well-bred  ewes  of  that  breed  together  with  two 
rams.  The  result  of  the  experiment  remains  to  be  seen,  but  I 
incline  to  the  opinion  that  in  this  district  it  is  best  to  keep  to  the 
Suffolk  ewes,  crossing  them  perhaps  with  the  Southdown  rams  to 
get  quality  in  the  mutton.  Pure-bred  Southdowns  no  doubt 
furnish  the  best  meat,  but  they  are  too  small.  It  is  true  that  they 
eat  somewhat  less  than  the  black-faced  breed,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  difference  between  the  excellence  of  their  mutton  and 
that  of  the  Suffolks  crossed  with  the  Southdown  is  slight,  whereas 
the  difference  in  weight  is  considerable.  Where  the  Southdowns 
really  have  the  pull  is  in  their  appearance.  The  Suffolks,  heavy 
by  comparison  and  hungry-looking,  are  at  a  disadvantage  here 
when  compared  with  the  nimble,  shapely  Southdowns,  with  their 
game-like  heads ;  but  after  all,  even  in  the  case  of  sheep,  handsome 
is  as  handsome  does,  and  the  local  butcher  cares  nothing  about 
looks.    He  goes  by  weight,  and  will  give  most  for  the  heaviest  lamb. 

With  so  small  a  flock  on  a  mixed  farm  like  mine,  where  there 
are  many  things  to  attend  to,  I  have  no  shepherd,  nor  can  I 
boast  any  proper  lambing  folds.  In  place  of  them  a  barn  on  the 
All  Hallows  Farm  is  divided  off  into  little  pens  with  hurdles, 
where  the  ewes  are  placed  in  comfort  as  they  come  on  to  lamb. 
The  steward,  Hood,  attends  to  them  at  that  critical  time,  and 
certainly  hitherto  his  ministrations  have  met  with  considerable 
success. 

As  the  weather  keeps  so  open  the  cows  are  let  out  for  a  few 
hours  every  day  to  take  exercise  in  one  or  other  of  the  meadows 


58  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

and  pick  up  what  food  they  can,  which  is  not  much.  This 
morning  I  was  watching  their  behaviour  to  one  of  their  number 
that,  for  domestic  reasons,  had  been  in  seclusion  for  about  a 
fortnight.  Now  she  reappeared  for  the  first  time,  and,  forgetful  of 
her  calf,  which  no  doubt  had  been  removed  from  her  a  week  or  so 
before,  testified  her  joy  at  finding  herself  in  the  open  air  again  by 
gambolling  about  the  field  with  the  awkwardness  peculiar  to  the 
race,  kicking  up  her  heels  and  lowing.  The  strange  point  of  the 
performance  was  that  the  other  cows  were  much  annoyed  at  her 
appearance,  for  every  one  of  them,  as  they  found  a  chance,  butted 
her  and  knocked  her  about  in  a  fashion  which  made  me  glad  that 
the  breed  is  hornless.  Clearly  the  memory  of  cows  is  short.  This 
sister  of  theirs  had  been  separated  from  them  for  a  few  days, 
therefore  they  treated  her  as  an  intruder,  a  slight  which  she 
seemed  to  resent,  for  whenever  she  could  spare  time  from  her 
gambols  she  gave  her  last  assailant  battle,  pushing  at  it  with  her 
head  till  one  or  the  other  got  the  better  of  the  war.  This 
cow-play  went  on  for  twenty  minutes  or  more,  when  it  was  given 
up  apparently  by  mutual  consent,  and  the  stranger,  as  it  were, 
readmitted  into  the  fellowship  of  the  herd  with  all  the  rights  and 
privileges  thereto  pertaining. 

Here  I  may  as  well  explain  that  my  cows,  of  which  I  keep 
about  twenty  at  the  Home  Farm  in  Ditchingham,  are  all  regis- 
tered pedigree  animals  of  the  Norfolk  red-poll  breed,  that  as  yet  is 
not  so  well  known  throughout  Great  Britain  as  it  deserves  to  be. 
Looked  at  with  the  most  critical  eye  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
red-polls  have  many  advantages,  though,  of  course,  there  may  be 
other  tribes  which  have  even  more.  To  begin  with,  their  looks  are 
in  their  favour.  What  can  be  more  beautiful  than  the  appearance 
of  a  herd  of  these  bronze-red,  shining-coated  cattle  as  they 
wander  over  a  pasture  in  the  summer,  or  stand  chewing  their  cud 
in  the  cool  shadow  of  the  trees,  gazing  at  the  intruder  with  wide- 
opened,  sleepy  eyes  ?  Indeed,  so  fine  are  their  limbs,  and,  espe- 
cially in  the  case  of  the  young  things,  so  deer-like  their  heads, 
that  they  might  almost  be  taken  for  wild  creatures  which  know  not 


JANUAR  y  59 

man,  although,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  singularly  docile  in 
character.  Of  course,  as  their  name  implies,  they  are  hornless,  a 
great  point  where  it  is  desired  to  keep  a  number  of  cattle  in 
small  or  medium-sized  yards.  Another  advantage  is  their  great 
hardiness — with  ordinary  care  it  is  not  common  to  lose  a  red- 
poll from  sickness,  or  even  in  calving.  During  the  seven  or  eight 
years  that  I  have  been  farming,  indeed,  I  can  only  remember  the 
loss  of  two,  and  both  by  accident ;  one  of  them,  a  fine  young  bull, 
doing  himself  to  death  last  year  by  getting  his  head  fixed  between 
the  hawthorn  stems  of  a  fence  and  struggling  until  he  broke  his 
neck.  Lastly,  they  ripen  early  for  the  butcher — as  a  rule  I  sell 
mine  at  about  two  years  of  age,  when,  without  undue  forcing,  they 
average  over  forty  stone  dead  weight — and  for  tenderness  and  gene 
ral  quality  their  beef  is  not  to  be  surpassed  by  any  that  I  know. 

The  points  urged  against  red-polls  are :  that  they  lack  size, 
and  that  their  milk,  although  very  rich,  is  scant  in  quantity.  To 
the  first  of  these  points  I  answer  that  they  are  quite  large  enough. 
Nowadays  few  people  want  great-boned  cattle,  indeed  the  demand 
is  all  for  small  beef.  As  to  the  second,  I  cannot  speak  with 
authority  myself,  for  it  is  not  my  practice  to  weigh  and  keep  a 
record  of  the  milk  of  each  individual  cow,  as  is  very  properly  done 
in  large  herds,  where  they  have  more  labour  and  better  facilities  at 
command.  Indeed,  even  if  I  could  do  so,  the  test  would  not  be  a 
fair  one,  since  I  have  only  kept  red-polls  for  a  short  time,  whereas 
it  takes  at  least  twenty  years  of  weeding  out  and  careful  selection 
to  establish  a  herd  of  the  very  best  milking  qualities.  As  specimens 
of  what  red-polls  will  do  as  milkers,  however,  I  take  the  record 
from  the  'Red-Poll  Herd-Book'  for  1897  of  the  two  best  cows  of 
a  few  herds  as  set  down  therein  for  one  year. 

Aspall  Hall  Herd 
Sappho       ....         9,716  lbs.  weight  of  milk. 
Susan  .         .         .         .         9,135     „ 

Cirencester  Park  Herd 
Frump       ....         9,599  lbs.  weight  of  milk. 
Sloe 8,793     ., 


6o  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


Melton  Constable  Herd 
Davy  87th.         .         .         .         8, 7 1 4^  lbs.  weight  of  milk. 
May  Queen        .        .         .         7i335l     ».         ».  » 

Necton  Hall  Herd 

Rosina  3rd  .         .         .         7,472  lbs.  weight  of  milk. 

Shebasrd.         .         .         .         7,177     „         „  „ 

Rendkshatn  Herd 
Fresh  Fuss  .         .         .         9,296^  lbs.  weight  of  milk. 

Sweet  Pear  2nd  .         .         .         8,339       »>         >»  »» 

Tring  Park  Herd  ' 
Elmham  Rosebud  9th  .       10,159  lbs.  weight  of  milk. 


Moth 


',**"     ,,         ,,  ,, 


I  might  quote  from  other  herds,  especially  the  noted  one  of 
Mr.  Colman,  but  the  above  are  sufficient  for  my  purpose. 

I  cannot  find  in  Stephens' '  Book  of  the  Farm,'  or  elsewhere,  a 
comparative  table  of  the  milk-producing  powers  of  different  breeds 
of  cows,  but  I  doubt  whether  any  breed,  except  perhaps  the  Short- 
horn, will  show  very  much  better  returns  than  those  quoted  above. 
It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  these  are  the  picked  cows 
of  picked  herds,  and  that  the  majority  even  of  pedigree  red-polls 
give  a  much  inferior  yield. 

The  points  of  the  first-class  red-poll  as  defined  in  the  '  Herd- 
Book  '  are  :  That  it  must  be  of  a  deep  red  hue,  white  being  allowed 
only  on  the  tip  of  the  tail.  The  nose  must  not  be  dark-coloured. 
The  throat  and  head  must  be  finely  modelled,  the  eye  full,  and 
a  tuft  of  hair  should  hang  over  the  forehead.  There  must  be  no 
trace  of  horns,  developed  or  undeveloped,  but  the  frontal  bones 
should  contract  into  a  narrow  peak  at  the  summit  of  the  head. 

January  12. — The  weather  for  the  last  three  days  has  been 
damp,  mild,  and  misty.     On  the  farm  we  have  been  ploughing  and 

'  In  this  herd  thirty-seven  cows  gave  an  average  of  6,939  lbs.  and 
a  fraction  per  cow.  But  then  they  are  owned  by  a  Rothschild,  so  doubtless 
much  is  expected  of  them. 


JANUARY  6i 

hedge-trimming.  I  was  talking  yesterday  to  Buck,  my  milkman,  at 
the  All  Hallows  Farm — where  I  keep  nearly  half  my  cows — who, 
as  is  the  custom  with  such  men  when  not  milking  or  attending  to 
the  cattle,  is  employed  on  odd  jobs  about  the  land.  He  was 
trimming  the  fence  of  the  back  lawn,  which  ever  since  I  have  had 
the  farm  in  hand  has  been  kept  neatly  clipped  with  shears,  and 
took  the  opportunity  to  remark  that  in  another  twenty  years  there 
would  not  be  a  hedge  left  alive  in  this  country.  I  asked  him  why  ; 
to  which  he  answered  that  farmers  have  entirely  given  up  the  old 
custom  that  was  in  force  when  he  was  a  boy,  of  cutting  the  thorns 
off  right  down  by  the  roots  and  '  ditching '  the  crown  of  the  fence 
by  coating  it  with  mud  out  of  the  holl.  He  informed  me  that  in 
the  old  days  it  was  usual  for  a  provision  to  be  inserted  in  leases 
enforcing  this  custom. 

But  nowadays  we  have  no  leases,  and,  if  we  had,  the  face  of 
the  farmer  who  was  asked  to  bind  himself  to  keep  his  fences  in  a 
particular  way,  or  indeed  to  do  anything  except  to  follow  his  own 
sweet  will,  would  probably  be  a  study.  I  can  remember  when  it  was 
the  custom  of  my  father's  tenants  at  Bradenham  at  the  other  side  of 
Norfolk  to  cart  all  the  coals  required  for  the  use  of  the  Hall,  and 
I  think — but  of  this  I  am  not  sure — to  provide  a  certain  amount 
of  straw  gratis.  Within  the  last  fifteen  years,  even,  tenants  have 
carted  gravel  for  me  here ;  but  these  old  customs  are  dying  out, 
more's  the  pity.  It  is  a  pity  not  only  because  the  landlords  have 
lost  the  advantage  of  what  was  a  convenience  to  them,  but  also  for 
the  reason  that  one  of  the  bonds  of  good  feeling  induced  by  the 
ungrudging  performance  of  a  neighbourly  service  has  been  broken 
away.  As  regards  the  hedges,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Buck 
is  too  pessimistic  in  alleging  that  they  will  all  die.  I  have, 
however,  myself  observed  that  hawthorns  have  a  natural  tendency 
to  get  thin  at  the  bottom,  however  much  they  may  be  trimmed  at 
the  top,  no  doubt  because  their  nature  is  to  grow  into  trees  and 
not  into  bushes. 

I  noticed  to-day  while  walking  over  the  new  pasture  by  the 
stackyard,  No.  6  on  plan,  that  the  suckling  is  already  thick  in 


62  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

the  grass,  making  patches  of  green  carpeting,  a  very  unusual 
thing  at  this  time  of  year.  I  am  glad  to  see  it  there,  however, 
for  this  pasture  has  now  reached  the  critical  period,  about  its 
fifth  year,  when  the  young  clovers  and  finer  grasses  are  only  too 
apt  to  die  out.  I  have  already  made  some  remarks  as  to  the 
laying  down  of  pastures,  and  now  I  would  add  to  them  a  question 
to  those  who  argue  that  these  cannot  be  successfully  established 
upon  such  lands  as  are  generally  supposed  to  be  unsuitable  to 
them.  How  is  it,  then,  that  even  on  most  of  these  soils  the 
banksides  or  ditches  bordering  the  head-lands  are  good  sound 
turf,  not  black  grass,  or  water-grass,  or  twitch,  but  herbage  such 
as  a  beast  can  fatten  on  ?  Doubtless  the  grasses  going  to  form 
that  herbage  are  those  natural  to  the  neighbourhood,  and  I 
believe  that  in  almost  every  case,  if  a  botanist  could  be  found  to 
classify  them  and  to  estimate  even  roughly  in  what  proportions 
they  occur,  the  difficulty  of  laying  down  grasses  which  would 
prove  quick  to  establish  themselves  as  permanent  would  be  very 
much  lessened. 

In  a  paper  written  by  one  of  the  most  esteemed  of  our 
Norfolk  farmers,  Mr.  Clare  Sewell  Read,  I  read  recently  that  when 
he  was  a  lad  he  remembers  pastures  being  very  successfully 
established  on  light  land  by  a  system  of  inoculation,  that  is, 
by  cutting  turf  from  the  roadside  or  other  waste  places,  and 
planting  it  in  lumps  over  the  surface  of  a  field,  leaving  spaces  of 
bare  soil  between  the  lumps.  Across  these  spaces  the  grass  spread 
quickly,  till  in  a  few  years  it  formed  a  compact  turf,  the  trouble 
being  to  prevent  the  rooks  and  other  birds  from  pulling  up  the 
planted  squares  before  they  had  time  to  get  hold.  I  can  well 
believe  that  this  plan  is  an  excellent  one,  although  too  slow, 
perhaps,  for  our  modern  habits.  Anyone  who  has  observed  such 
matters  will  be  aware  how  quickly  growing  things  spread  in  soil 
that  is  suitable  to  them.  Thus  I  am  certain  that  were  it  left 
uncultivated  much  of  the  land  in  England  would  become  dense 
thorn  scrub  within  a  single  generation. 

Indeed,    I  have   seen  the   process  going  on  in  a  neglected 


JANUARY  63 

meadow  on  the  heavy-land  farm  at  Spexhall,  belonging  to  this 
property,  which  a  few  years  ago  was  dotted  thickly  with  thorn- 
bushes.  Also,  when  shooting  in  Hertfordshire  last  year  over 
fields  from  which  a  corn  crop  had  been  taken  that  autumn, 
I  noted  thousands  of  bramble  seedlings.  Can  it  be  doubted 
that  if  this  land  were  left  unploughed  for  a  few  seasons  it 
would  become  nothing  but  a  briar  scrub  spreading  from  the 
hedgerows  ? 

The  sheep  are  now  penned  upon  part  of  No.  42,  the  fourteen- 
acre  on  Baker's  Farm,  which  was  layer  last  year.  The  land  is 
foul  and  poor,  and  as  we  have  no  manure  to  put  on  it,  we  are 
folding  it  with  the  ewes  before  ploughing  it  for  oats  in  order  to 
freshen  it  up  as  much  as  possible  under  the  circumstances. 
Fortunately  I  have  still  a  fair  supply  of  white  turnips  with 
which  to  feed  them.  These  are  said  to  be  a  better  food  for  ewes 
in  the  lambing  time  than  beet,  which  are  supposed  to  make  them 
miscarry;  and  indeed  beet  at  this  time  of  year  are  still  very 
lush.  These  white  turnips  were  a  catch  crop  grown  on  a  portion 
of  the  twelve-acre.  No.  28,  commonly  known  as  the  Thwaite 
field. 

Last  year,  or  rather  the  year  before,  the  top  part  of  this 
Thwaite  field  was  sown  for  winter  wheat,  but  for  some  unexplained 
reason,  perhaps  because  of  the  bitter  spring  winds,  which  strike 
this  exposed  situation  with  great  force,  the  crop  was  the  worst 
that  I  ever  grew.  I  drilled  vetches  in  the  spring  into  the  greater 
part  of  it,  in  the  hope  that  it  would  give  me  a  breadth  of  cheap 
feed  after  such  corn  as  there  was  had  been  cut,  but  these  vetches 
failed  also,  owing  to  the  drought.  Indeed,  that  part  of  the  field 
produced  more  poppies  than  anything  else — red  weed  we  call  it, 
which,  although  picturesque  in  appearance,  is  not  satisfactory  to 
the  farmer.  About  three  acres  of  the  worst  of  it,  however,  we 
folded  off  for  sheep,  which  throve  very  well  upon  the  young  wheat 
until,  towards  the  end,  the  straw  grew  too  tough  for  them.  After 
they  had  done  with  it  the  land  was  ploughed  and  drilled  with 
white  turnips,  and  from  these,  although  the  season  has  been  so  dry, 


64  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

I  have  had  an  excellent  return,  more  indeed  than  could  have  been 
expected.  This  is  another  testimony,  if  any  were  needed,  to  the 
value  of  sheep  as  fertilisers  of  the  soil. 

January  14. — The  weather  to-day  is  again  dull,  mild,  and 
quite  windless.  There  are  three  ploughs  going  on  the  farm,  one 
of  them  at  work  in  the  nine-acre  on  All  Hallows  Farm,  No.  36  upon 
the  plan,  a  good  but  rather  scaldy  bit  of  land.  This  field  was 
under  beet  and  swedes  last  year,  the  beet  being  sown  on  the  lower 
half  of  it,  where  the  soil  is  somewhat  deeper.  There  was  a  very 
full  plant  of  swedes,  which  would  have  produced  a  fine  crop  had  it 
not  been  for  the  drought  that  stunted  them.  The  beet,  standing 
on  the  cooler  soil,  did  well ;  indeed  beet  do  not  mind  dry  weather 
in  moderation.  The  whole  field  is  now  coming  for  barley,  and  I 
hope  will  only  need  this  one  ploughing.  Peachey,  the  plough- 
man, who  is  at  work  on  it,  a  person  of  experience,  tells  me  that 
he  prefers  '  the  first  earth '  for  barley,  and  I  believe  that  this 
preference  is  general,  though  if  the  land  has  been  ploughed 
early  in  the  autumn  and  gone  down  tight,  a  second  ploughing  is 
very  beneficial.  Also  barley  land  that  has  been  sheeped  is 
best  ploughed  twice,  once  skimmed  only  to  cover  the  *  tether,'  and 
once  for  crop. 

This  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham  and  inspected  the  stock. 
There  are  four  red-poll  steers  tied  up  fatting  in  a  shed,  and  three 
others  in  the  yard,  all  looking  very  well.  Also  there  is  a  two- 
year-old  bullock  which  promises  to  make  such  a  beauty  that  I  am 
keeping  him  over  with  a  view  of  showing  him  next  Christmas,  a 
thing  I  have  never  done  before.  I  might  have  disposed  of  him 
at  a  good  price  to  the  agent  of  a  much  larger  breeder  who  is 
looking  out  for  promising  beasts  to  be  shown  by  his  employer  next 
Christmas,  but  I  have  declined  the  offer.  Probably  I  shall  regret 
this  ere  the  year  is  out,  as  eight  out  of  ten  of  these  animals,  before 
their  time  comes  to  go  to  the  show  bench,  develop  some  imper- 
fection or  other  which  proves  fatal  to  their  chances  of  prize-taking. 

In  fact  the  showing  of  cattle  is  an  unprofitable  business  to 


JANUARY  65 

any  except  the  largest  breeders,  who  make  it  apart  of  their  routine 
in  order  to  advertise  their  herds  and  thus  to  obtain  large  prices 
for  their  young  bulls  and  heifers.  Success  is  very  much  a  matter 
of  outlay,  for  not  only,  as  a  rule,  must  the  bulls  and  dams  be 
costly  animals,  but  the  expense  of  preparing  their  progeny  for  the 
ring  is  considerable.  Thus,  they  must  be  kept  on  a  cow  much 
longer  than  is  usual,  and  afterwards  receive  more  ample  food  and 
attention.  Also,  the  sending  of  them  and  their  attendants 
backwards  and  forwards  to  shows  always  means  money.  It  is  not 
wonderful,  therefore,  that  many  owners  of  good  cattle  do  not  think 
that  the  game  will  pay  for  the  candle. 

Besides  these  steers  there  are  ten  young  things  running  in 
the  big  meadow,  whence  they  come  up  at  night  and  are  fed  with 
a  mixture  of  hay,  chaff,  and  swedes.  Also  there  are  the  farm- 
horses  (we  are  managing  with  two  at  Bedingham  now,  one  of 
them  in  foal),  colts  and  ponies,  so  it  will  be  seen  that  for  the  size 
of  the  place  there  is  a  good  proportion  of  stock. 

After  inspecting  the  animals  I  walked  down  to  the  six-acre, 
No.  18  on  plan,  which  is  being  bush  drained,  a  process  that  is 
perhaps  worth  describing  for  the  benefit  of  the  uninitiated. 

Bush-draining  is  a  system  used  upon  very  heavy  clay  lands 
where  it  would  be  of  doubtful  advantage,  if  not  mere  waste,  to  go 
to  the  expense  of  pipes.  It  is  done  thus.  First  the  lines  of  the 
drains  are  drawn  with  a  plough.  This  sounds  simple  enough, 
and  perhaps  it  is  simple  to  the  experts  who  do  it,  but  to  the 
uninstructed  the  difficulties,  especially  on  a  perfectly  flat  piece  of 
land,  seem  enormous.  Of  course  the  land  is  not  perfectly  flat ; 
if  it  were,  while  hesitating  to  express  a  positive  opinion,  I  presume 
that  it  would  not  be  possible  to  drain  without  the  help  of  a  pump. 
Still,  to  take  the  instance  of  this  field  at  Bedingham,  it  is  so  flat 
that  the  eye,  or  rather  my  eye,  can  detect  no  variation  of  level.  In 
fact,  however,  there  is  a  slight  rise  in  the  centre  of  the  field,  forming 
its  watershed,  so  that  the  drains  must  run  and  discharge  in  two 
directions,  starting  from  the  watershed ;  or,  to  put  it  more  clearly, 
although  the  drain  trenches  are  cut  straight  from  one  side  of  the 


66  A   FARMER'S  YEAR 

field  to  the  other,  the  water  does  not  iiow  thewhole  length  of  them, 
but  does  flow  to  the  top  or  bottom  ditch,  according  to  the  side  of 
the  watershed  upon  which  it  is  collected  in  the  soil.  Now  this 
and  many  other  facts  have  to  be  mastered  and  borne  in  mind  by 
the  man  who  draws  the  drains ;  above  all  he  has  to  know  the  exact 
slope  of  the  various  falls  and  the  best  spots  for  the  outlets  of 
the  water.  Further,  he  must  make  no  mistake,  or  much  money 
and  labour  may  be  wasted ;  and  the  curious  part  of  it  is  that  he 
does  not  make  any  mistake,  at  least  in  my  experience  I  have 
never  known  him  to  do  so.  By  '  him '  I  may  explain  that  I  mean 
the  ordinary  ploughman  who  is  set  to  draw  the  drains,  not  an 
expert  employed  for  that  purpose.  Theoretically,  and  perhaps 
actually,  he  is  provided  with  a  spirit-level,  but  I  do  not  think  that 
he  often  uses  that  instrument. 

It  may  be  asked,  then,  how  he  accomplishes  his  task ;  to 
which  I  answer  that  I  do  not  know,  for  nothing  is  more  difficult 
than  to  get  a  clear  explanation  of  anything  to  do  with  their  art 
from  men  of  this  stamp.  I  conclude,  however,  that  on  a  difficult 
field  the  thing  is  done  partly  by  eye  and  partly  by  watching  the 
natural  trickle  of  the  water,  but.  most  of  all  by  tradition.  Very 
likely  the  man  has  drawn  the  drains  before,  perhaps  several  times 
upon  this  very  field ;  or  if  he  has  not,  his  father  has,  or,  failing 
him,  someone  else  about  the  place. 

In  this  country,  where  such  labourers  as  remain  on  the  land 
are  practically  adscripti  glebce^  there  are  always  men  who  know  the 
history  of  a  particular  field  for  the  last  one  or  two  generations.  Thus, 
when  I  was  draining  the  eight-acre.  No.  2,  here,  with  tile  drains 
before  it  was  laid  down  to  permanent  pasture,  I  remember  some 
old  pipes,  of  the  sort  that  were  used  many  years  ago,  measuring 
about  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter,  being  turned  up  by  the 
drainers,  filled,  each  of  them,  with  a  core  of  stiff  clay.  An  old 
man  was  standing  beside  me  watching  the  operations.  '  Ah  ! '  he 
said,  addressing  the  pipe,  '  I  remimber  a-carrying  of  yow  when  I 
wore  a  lad  more  nor  seventy  yir  ago.'  It  transpired  afterwards 
that  in  this  remote  period  the  old  gentleman  had  been  employed  to 


JANUARY  67 

place  these  narrow  pipes — then,  I  believe,  a  new-fangled  agricultural 
luxury — in  little  heaps  ready  to  the  hand  of  the  man  who  laid  the 
drains.  He  also  told  me,  by  the  way,  that  in  those  days  the  field  in 
question  was  common  land,  which  someone  enclosed  and  drained. 

It  is  the  fashion,  especially  in  the  comic  papers,  to  talk  of  the  agri- 
cultural labourer  as  Hodge — a  term  of  contempt — and  to  speak  of 
him  as  though  he  had  about  as  much  intelligence  as  a  turnip.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  after  a  somewhat  prolonged  experience  of  his  class, 
I  say  deliberately  that,  take  it  all  in  all,  there  are  few  sections  of 
society  for  which  I  have  so  great  an  admiration.  Of  course,  I  am 
excepting  black  sheep,  brutes,  drunkards,  and  mean  fellows,  of 
whom  there  is  an  ample  supply  in  every  walk  of  life.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  am  excepting  also  any  specimens  palpably  above  the 
general  level,  and  talking  of  the  man  as  one  meets  him  everywhere 
upon  whatever  farm  one  likes  to  visit. 

Let  us  take  the  problem  of  life  as  it  presents  itself  to  that 
vara  avis^  the  stay-at-home  agricultural  labourer  of  to-day.  He  has 
received  some  education— for,  supposing  him  to  be  a  man  on  the 
right  side  of  forty,  the  Board  schools  had  begun  in  his  time — but 
he  does  not  trouble  himself  much  about  learning.  As  soon  as  he 
was  out  of  school  he  began  work  on  a  farm  in  his  parish,  and  at 
nineteen  or  twenty,  following  a  natural  and  proper  impulse,  he 
took  to  himself  a  wife.  From  tliat  day,  earlier  than  is  the  case  with 
any  other  class  of  society,  his  responsibilities  began.  Being  still  so 
young  he  would  not  be  trusted  in  any  of  the  higher  positions  on  a 
farm,  such  as  that  of  horseman,  but  his  work  would  be  that  of  a 
general  labourer  earning,  let  us  say,  an  average  wage  of  about 
thirteen  shillings  a  week,  including  his  harvest.  Within  five  years 
he  would  have  at  least  three  children,  perhaps  more,  and  within 
twelve  years  seven  or  eight  living,  all  of  whom  must  be  supported 
by  the  daily  labour  of  his  hands,  and  who,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten^ 
are  so  supported.  Besides  providing  for  those  children,  he  pays  the 
rent  of  his  cottage,  3/.  or  4/.  a  year,  and,  if  he  is  a  prudent  man,  a 
subscription  towards  an  Oddfellows  or  other  benefit  society,  which 
makes  him  an  allowance  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  falls  sick 

F  2 


68  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

or  is  disabled  by  accident.  It  is  during  these  first  seventeen  or 
eighteen  years  of  his  married  life  that  the  burden  of  existence  falls 
most  heavily  upon  him,  since  there  are  many  mouths  to  feed  and 
only  one  pair  of  hands  to  provide  the  food.  Still,  in  the  vast 
majority  of  instances,  it  is  provided,  and,  what  is  more,  if  his  wife 
be -a  managing  woman  blessed  with  fair  health,  the  children  are 
sufficiently,  and  in  many  instances  neatly,  clothed.  Often,  when 
passing  the  school  of  this  parish  as  the  scholars  are  coming  out 
of  it,  I  have  noticed  and  wondered  at  their  general  tidiness  and 
good  appearance.  Not  one  of  them  looks  starved,  not  one  of 
them  seems  to  be  suffering  from  cold ;  indeed,  any  delicate 
youngster  is  provided  with  a  proper  coat  or  comforter. 

Afterwards,  when  his  family  is  growing  up,  our  labourer's  long 
struggle  against  want  becomes  less  severe,  for  the  boys  begin  to 
earn'a  little,  some  of  which  finds  its  way  to  the  general  fund,  and 
the  girls  go  out  as  servants,  kitchen-maids,  or  '  generals,'  in  situa- 
tions where  they  are  well  fed  and  paid  enough  to  dress  themselves, 
leaving  a  pound  or  two  in  their  pockets  at  the  end  of  the  year.  So 
matters  go  on  until  oux  friend  becomes  old,  which  common  mis- 
fortune overtakes  him  about  the  age  of  seventy.  Then  it  is  that 
too  frequently  the  real  tragedy  of  life  strikes  him.  He  is  no 
longer  able  to  do  a  full  day's  work,  and  in  these  times,  when  the 
best  of  farmers  can  scarcely  make  both  ends  meet  and  earn  a 
living,  it  is  not  to  be  expected,  indeed  it  is  not  possible,  that  they 
should  continue  to  pay  him  for  what  he  cannot  perform.  There- 
fore, if  help  is  not  forthcoming  from  his  children  or  other  sources, 
he  must  sink  to  the  workhouse,  or  at  least  upon  the  rates. 

Such  but  too  often,  though  by  no  means  universally,  is  the 
bitter  end  of  his  long  life  of  useful  and  strenuous  labour.  Is  it  a 
necessary  end?  I  think  not.  I  know  all  the  pitfalls  and  diffi- 
culties that  surround  the  question  of  Old-Age  Pensions.  This  is 
not  the  place  to  discuss  them  fully,  but  for  my  part  I  believe  that 
the  case  of  a  deserving  labouring  man  ought  not  to  be  beyond  the 
reach  of  some  system  of  insurance,  though  whether  it  should  be 
national  insurance — that  is   to   say,  inaugurated,  managed,   and 


JANUARY  69 

guaranteed  by  the  nation — or  conducted  in  the  ordinary  way  by 
private  enterprise,  I  do  not  know.  Any  such  insurance,  however, 
necessarily  presupposes  a  steady  contribution  that  the  beneficiary 
can  ill  afford  to  the  fund  which  provides  it,  and  it  is  here  that  the 
trouble  comes  in.  It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  force  free  men 
to  contribute  to  such  a  fund  by  Act  of  Parliament ;  yet,  if  they  are 
not  forced,  would  the  bulk  of  them  keep  up  their  payments  through 
a  long  life  of  penury  ?  Would  they,  even  if  they  so  desired,  be 
able  to  keep  them  up  ?  Even  the  strongest  man  is  sometimes  sick  ; 
even  the  most  deserving  is  sometimes  out  of  work.  Moreover,  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  of  the  essence  of  the  thing  that  this  pro- 
vision should  not  be  a  mere  dole  provided  by  the  State  or  by 
charities,  for  such  a  system  could  never  stand.  To  be  effective, 
to  be  appreciated,  and  to  be  generally  adopted,  it  must,  under  the 
common  law  of  life,  be  provided  by  the  labour  and  self-sacrifice  of 
the  person  benefited. ' 

The  problem  before  society  is  to  discover  by  what  method — 
State-guaranteed  or  otherwise— this  can  be  done  without  crushing 
the  wage-earner  into  the  dirt  during  his  long  years  of  contribution, 
and  in  such  a  fashion  as  will  assist  him  without  debasing  the 
great  principles  of  self-help  and  self-reliance.  Again  I  say  that 
however  difficult  this  problem  may  appear,  I  do  not  believe  it  to 
be  insoluble,  indeed  I  hope  to  live  long  enough  to  see  it  on  the 
way  to  solution. 

'  Recently  I  have  insured  all  the  men  in  my  employ,  farm  and  domestic 
servants  together,  with  a  policy  under  which,  in  case  of  death  or  disablement 
by  illness  or  accident,  they  or  their  representatives  obtain  certain  advantages. 
This  policy,  I  may  explain,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  Employers'  Liability 
Acts,  under  the  provisions  of  which  farmers  are  not  liable,  except  in  the  case  of 
misfortunes  resulting  from  the  use  of  steam  machinery,  although  it  covers  all 
such  possible  risks.  Yet,  although,  faute  de  mieux,  I  have  adopted  it,  the 
system  in  my  opinion  is  bad.  A  man  ought  to  insure  himself  out  of  his  own 
earnings,  or  if  he  will  not,  then  the  State  should  force  providence  upon  him. 
Other  trades  (unless  the  law  intervenes)  do  not  provide  for  their  servants  in 
this  fashion.  For  instance,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  my  literary  employers 
have  not  found  themselves  called  upon  to  insure  me  against  the  results  of 
accident,  breakdown,  or  premature  imbecility. 


70  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Money  is  deducted  from  dividends  or  other  earnings  to  satisfy 
income-tax.  Would  it  not  be  possible  by  some  similar  legislative 
regulations  to  oblige  the  employer  to  pay  over  a  certain  percentage 
of  all  wages  to  a  great  insurance  fund  for  the  benefit  of  the  person 
who  is  temporarily  deprived  of  such  percentage,  and,  that  these 
laws  might  not  appear  invidious,  to  apply  their  principle  to  the 
earnings  of  every  class  of  society  ?  Of  course  this  would  be  an 
interference  with  the  liberty  of  the  subject  to  do  what  he  likes 
with  what  he  has  earned,  but  then  so  is  the  income-tax.  That 
goes  to  support  the  nation ;  this  would  go  to  support  the  indi- 
vidual, his  family,  or  his  representatives.  I  cannot  see  that 
there  is  more  degradation  in  being  forced  to  contribute  towards 
a  pension  fund  than  in  being  forced  to  contribute  towards  the 
income-tax.  In  fact,  I  believe  that  this  system  already  obtains 
in  the  Indian  Civil  Service  and  elsewhere,  but  I  never  heard  that 
Indian  civil  servants  felt  themselves  degraded  or  aggrieved  be- 
cause they  were  obliged  to  comply  with  it.  I  am  sure,  indeed, 
that  most  of  us  would  be  deeply  grateful  to  any  Government  that 
from  the  beginning  had  insisted  on  collecting,  say,  ten  per  cent,  of 
our  earnings  for  our  own  benefit. 

Of  course  many  would  object  in  every  walk  of  life,  and 
especially  among  the  labouring  classes— that  section  of  them  who, 
from  improvidence  or  idleness,  are  pretty  certain  to  end  upon  the 
rates.  Of  course,  also,  because  any  such  measure  would  not 
only  be  difficult  in  its  details,  but  unpopular  among  a  large 
number  of  voters,  no  Government  is  likely  to  undertake  it  at 
present.  Even  were  it  convinced  that  it  was  for  the  welfare  of 
the  nation,  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  Government  would  under- 
take it,  because  as  a  general  rule  Governments  think  of  their  own 
welfare  first.  And  it  may  be  argued  that  it  is  not  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  nation.  All  the  old  saws  as  to  the  natural  and 
proper  ruin  and  disappearance  of  the  unfit,  the  unlucky,  and 
the  improvident,  would  certainly  be  trotted  out.  Life,  we 
should  be  told,  and  the  good  things  thereof,  are  to  the  strong 
and  the  rich,  and  to  those  who  know  how  to  save  or  to  transfer 


JANUARY  71 

Ihe  savings  of  others  to  their  own  pockets.  As  to  the  thought- 
less or  indeed  wicked  person  who  has  neglected  to  put  by  suffi- 
cient for  his  old  age  out  of  twelve  shillings  a  week,  well,  he  must 
take  the  consequences  and  go  to  the  workhouse  with  any  depen- 
dent upon  him.  To  force  him  to  provide  for  himself  would  be  to 
emasculate  the  race  and  to  deprive  it  of  the  instinct  of  thrift  and 
the  stimulus  of  relf-denial. 

Well,  if  this  be  so,  I  should  like  to  see  the  race  emasculated. 
I  think  that  the  object  of  all  good  government  ought  to  be  to 
provide  for  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  in 
every  legitimate  way  that  does  not  involve  interfering  with  the 
established  rights  of  others.  I  think  that  the  'survival  of  the 
fittest '  theory  can  be  pushed  too  far.  It  is  very  well  to  point  to 
Nature ;  but  I  answer  that  I  do  not  approve  of  Nature — that  in  fact 
all  our  life  as  a  race,  as  communities,  as  individuals,  is  one  long 
struggle  against  Nature.  Of  course  Nature  must  win  in  the  end, 
but  at  least  we  can  mitigate  her  cruelties.  My  sympathies  go  out 
to  the  weak,  the  unfortunate,  and  even  to  the  improvident.  I  am 
more  moved  by  the  sight — let  us  say — of  the  drayman  who,  with 
his  family,  sinks  to  the  workhouse  because  of  a  too  frequent  indul- 
gence in  bad  beer  (bought  at  a  '  tied  house ')  than  by  that  of  the 
glory  of  his  employer,  the  brewer,  who  (having  had  opportunity 
and  being  strong  and  provident),  because  he  has  mastered  the  art 
of  making  that  beer  cheaply  and  selling  it  dear,  is  now  a  noble 
lord  with  an  estate  that  will  pay  death-duties  on  a  million.  I 
would  not  interfere  with  the  brewer  and  his  million,  except  perhnps 
by  way  of  a  graduated  income-tax,  but  I  would  try  to  protect  the 
drayman  against  himself,  for  his  family's  sake  if  not  for  his  own. 
Moreover,  I  would  see,  by  the  way,  that  the  beer  with  which  he 
fuddles  his  brain  zvas  beer,  not  the  mixture  of  quassia  chips,  sugar, 
and  other  foreign  ingredients  which  in  some  instances,  perhaps, 
has  helped  to  make  a  millionaire  of  his  master,  and  that  the 
public-house  where  he  deals  has  liberty  to  sell  him  whatever  brew 
he  may  prefer. 

Doubtless  these  ideas  are  very  radical,  but  there  are  points 


72  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

upon  which  some  of  us  grow  more  radical  as  we  grow  older.  Also 
I  am  sure  that  they  have  been  better  argued  by  others.  Still, 
they  are  my  own,  not  got  from  books,  but  the  honest  result  of  my 
private  observations,  and  there  can  therefore  be  no  harm  in  setting 
them  down  here.  I  believe,  moreover,  that  posterity  will  ratify 
them. 

To  return  to  our  labourer.  Most  people  unacquainted  with 
the  routine  of  a  farm  have  a  notion  that  his  duties  are  of  the 
simplest  description.  To  these  I  would  say — let  them  try  any  one 
of  them,  even  the  easiest,  such  as  '  drawing '  a  ditch,  and  I  think 
that  they  will  change  their  views.  In  truth,  there  is  no  single 
operation  on  the  land  that  does  not  require  a  very  considerable 
amount  of  skill  to  perform  it  properly,  and  this  skill,  acquired 
by  years  of  practice,  the  agricultural  labourer  puts  at  the  ser- 
vice of  anyone  who  will  pay  him  thirteen  shillings  a  week.  More- 
over, there  is  no  nonsense  about  eight  hours  a  day  with  him. 
With  brief  intervals  for  food  he  labours  from  six  to  six,  or  more, 
and  in  winter  from  daylight  to  dark.  Indeed,  horsemen  and  cattle- 
men work  longer ;  moreover,  when  calves  or  foals  are  expected 
they  have  often  to  sit  up  all  night,  perhaps  for  the  best  part  of  a 
week,  and  this  without  extra  charge.  Likewise,  holidays  are  for 
them  practically  non-existent,  and  if  the  weather  should  be  such 
that  it  is  impossible  for  farrrt-work  to  continue,  the  labourer  goes 
home  and  is  docked  of  his  wage. 

The  sympathetic,  on  reading  these  details,  may  possibly  say 
to  the  writer  of  them,  'We  hope  ihdityou  pay  your  men  a  higher 
wage,  and  don't  send  them  home  when  the  weather  is  bad  ? '  As 
regards  the  last,  certainly  I  do  bid  my  steward  to  try  always  to  find 
them  a  job  of  some  sort  or  other,  however  hard  it  may  freeze,  or 
snow,  or  rain.  As  regards  the  first,  like  Mr.  Curzon  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  I  say  that  the  answer  is  in  the  negative.  The  man 
who,  from  philanthropic  or  other  motives,  began  to  pay  his 
labourers  more  than  the  local  rate  of  wage  would  bring  down 
upon  himself  the  concentrated  curse  of  his  entire  neighbourhood. 
Moreover,  if,  like  myself,  he  is  a  farmer  farming  as  a  business,  he 
cannot  possibly  afford  to  do  so.     Nobody  runs  a  large  farm  and 


JANUARY  73 

pays  away  several  hundreds  per  annum  in  wages  as  a  mere  amuse- 
ment for  long,  or  if  '  nobody  '  is  a  large  term,  very  few  do  so.  In 
short,  the  labourer  is  paid  according  to  the  value  of  his  labour,  and 
owing  to  the  dreadful  depression  in  farming,  and  the  nominal 
price  of  produce,  its  value  is  not  great.  I  hope  to  see  his  wage 
rise,  but  it  cannot  rise  appreciably  unless  the  price  of  produce 
rises  also.  Meanwhile  he  is  taking  the  matter  into  his  own  hands, 
and  deserting  the  land. 

If  you  argue  this  question  of  the  labourer's  lot  with  farmers, 
who,  as  a  class,  are  very  severe  critics  of  the  actual  tillers  of 
the  soil,  they  will  point  out  that,  owing  to  the  fall  in  the  price 
of  provisions,  although  wages  are  so  low,  his  circumstances  are 
better  than  they  were  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  ago.  This  is 
doubtless  true,  but  they  neglect  to  explain  what  his  position  was 
at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  Those  interested  in  the  question 
can  easily  study  it  in  the  pages  of  various  writers,  but  to  my  mind 
the  marvel  is  that  when  wheat  was  selling  for  5/.  or  6/.  a  quarter, 
and  cottages  were  mere  mud-hovels,  the  race  continued  to  exist. 
On  this  property,  not  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  my  house,  there 
stands  a  shed  built  of  clay-lump,  and  roofed,  I  think,  with  faggots  ; 
it  may  measure  sixteen  feet  in  length  by  about  ten  in  breadth,  and 
inside  is  divided  into  two  parts,  now  tenanted  by  calves.  In  that 
shed  an  old  lady-— not  of  the  poorest,  for  she  planted  a  large 
orchard — reared  a  numerous  family,  one  of  whom  was  for  many 
years  my  groom.  Nowadays  the  cottage  which  I  provide  upon 
the  holding  contains  two  sitting  and  several  bed  rooms,  with  ample 
offices — an  instance  that  shows  how  in  this  respect  things  have 
changed  for  the  better. 

Sometimes  I  wonder  whether  any  labourers  wall  be  content  to 
stick  to  the  soil  at  the  present  scale  of  remuneration.  Doubtless  the 
older  men  at  present  employed  upon  it  will  do  so  because  they  must, 
but  how  about  their  sons  ?  The  education  which  they  receive  at 
the  schools  teaches  them,  that  there  are  places  in  the  world 
besides  their  own  Little  Pedlington,  with  the  result  that  already 
there  is  an  enormous  influx  into  the  towns,  where  wages  are  highei 
—for  those  who  can  get  them — and  life  is  more  lively. 


74  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

That  the  people  go  somewhere  is  proved  by  the  fact  that,  in 
spite  of  its  great  increase  throughout  England,  the  population  of 
our  villages  is  rapidly  waning,  and  that  really  skilled  farm  hands, 
men  who  can  plough,  thatch,  drain,  and  milk,  are  becoming 
more  and  more  difficult  to  find.  At  present,  however,  I  do  not 
think  that  the  surplus  gets  much  further  than  the  cities.  In  the 
future,  as  their  minds  become  accustomed  to  the  idea,  and  they 
grow  to  understand  how  great  are  the  opportunities  of  the  British 
Colonies,  perhaps  the  young  men  will  drift  thither.  At  present 
bricklayers  in  Bulawayo  are  being  paid  a  pound  and  an  ordinary 
labouring  man  ten  shillings  a  day,  and  were  he  less  stay-at-home 
these  are  prices  that  might  tempt  Mr.  Hodge  to  travel,  especially  as 
in  those  lands  Jack  is  as  good — or  rather  better — than  his  master. 

Up  till  now,  if  the  inhabitant  of  a  Norfolk  village  emigrates,  it 
is  generally  to  America,  and  very  often  he  does  not  like  America 
when  he  gets  there.  I  remember  a  blacksmith  with  whom  I  was 
well  acquainted  going  to  the  States,  but  in  a  couple  of  years  he 
was  to  be  seen  working  at  the  old  forge  in  his  native  village.  I 
asked  him  why  he  had  come  back,  and  he  told  me  that  he  earned 
plenty  of  money  out  there,  but  he  *  didn't  like  it.'  When  I  was 
in  New  York  a  tailor  came  to  see  me  who  had  been  an  apprentice 
here  in  Bungay.  He  told  me  the  same  story.  Plenty  of  money, 
especially  at  times,  but  he  *  meant  to  get  back  as  soon  as  he 
could.'  Also  I  had  a  conversation  with  an  English  coachman, 
whose  tale  was  much  the  same.  His  wages  were  large,  but  *  there 
weren't  no  society  for  such  as  him ' ;  in  the  vStates  they  were  all 
'  gents  or  niggers.' 

When  the  labouring  classes  come  to  know  it,  circumstances 
are  different  in  the  British  Colonies,  where  a  hard-working, 
respectable  man  still  has  a  chance  of  rising  to  almost  any  position, 
and  of  seeing  his  sons  and  daughters  in  the  same  social  station  as 
the  gentry  of  the  country  parish  which  he  has  left  at  home.  Of 
course,  however,  these  lands  will  fill  up,  and  such  opportunities 
become  rare.  In  the  meanwhile  two  potent  considerations  above 
all  others  prevent  the  young  men  of  our  villages  from  availing 


JANUARY  75 

themselves  of  them  :  First,  their  innate  horror  of  change  and  of 
the  unknown ;  and,  secondly,  reasons  not  unconnected  with  the 
other  sex.  To  emigrate  with  a  family  is  difficult,  and  if  they 
emigrate  as  unmarried  men,  in  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty  they 
must  leave  some  girl  with  whom  they  are  more  or  less  mixed  up 
behind  them.  Therefore,  as  such  affairs  begin  early  among  this 
class,  they  do  not  emigrate  as  yet — except  to  London ;  at  least, 
not  in  any  great  numbers.  With  the  Irish,  who  have  gone  out  to 
people  many  lands,  it  is  a  different  matter. 

Thus  it  comes  about  that  the  towns  still  leave  us  a  decreasing 
number  of  labourers  who  are  content  to  stop  in  the  village  which 
has  been  inhabited  by  their  ancestors  for  hundreds  of  years,  and 
to  till  the  fields  that  their  forefathers  tilled  from  the  times  of 
the  Tudors  or  Plantagenets,  although,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  very 
noticeable  that  among  the  younger  men  can  be  found  few  good 
ploughmen  or  yardmen.  Indeed  the  lack  of  these  skilled  hands 
is  becoming  one  of  the  most  serious  questions,  if  not  the  most 
serious,  that  the  farmer  has  to  face. 

In  our  part  of  the  world  a  certain  proportion  of  the  lads  go 
for  soldiers,  and  a  still  larger  number  become  amphibious  ;  that 
is  to  say,  they  take  service  on  Lowestoft  smacks  during  the 
herring  season.  As  a  rule  the  smacksmen  do  better  than  the 
soldiers,  for  the  latter  almost  invariably  return  after  their  eight 
years'  service  to  find  themselves  absolutely  unfitted  at  six-and- 
twenty  or  so  to  follow  the  avocation  of  an  agricultural  labourer. 
A  few  get  situations  as  grooms — I  have  two  such  men  in  my 
employment  at  this  moment ;  but  there  is  a  general,  though 
frequently  a  very  unjust,  prejudice  against  them.  The  farmers 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  them,  for  they  say,  perhaps  rightly, 
that  they  have  lost  touch  with  the  land,  and  are  of  little  use  upon  it. 

I  remember  trying  to  persuade  my  bailiff  to  take  on  a  young 
fellow,  the  son  of  one  of  my  horsemen,  who  had  come  home  from 
his  spell  of  short  service,  but  without  result.  He  was  physically  a 
fine  man,  and  very  willing,  but  the  answer  was  that  though  he  might 
be  all  very  well  for  odd  jobs,  he  was  no  good  as  a  labourer.     Fail- 


76  A   FARMERS    YEAR 

ingto  find  employment — I  tried  to  get  him  admitted  into  the  police, 
but  he  was  u  little  over  age— he  went  to  sea  as  a  smacksman, 
and  was  drowned  on  his  first  voyage.  His  brother,  who  had  also 
been  a  soldier,  hung  about  his  parents'  house  without  employ- 
ment till,  as  it  was  said,  he  took  to  drinking.  At  any  rate, 
his  mind  became  unhinged,  and  he  committed  suicide  a  few  days 
before  the  ex-soldier  was  lost  at  sea.  The  worst  thing  that  a 
young  fellow  from  a  country  village  can  do  is  to  enlist,  unless  he 
means  to  make  soldiering  the  profession  of  his  Hfe.  It  is  all  very 
well  to  take  on  an  eight  years'  engagement  at  forty  years  of  age ; 
at  eighteen,  with  your  life  before  you,  it  seems  a  folly. 

My  remarks  upon  the  rural  labourer  have  led  me  away  from 
the  subject  of  bush  draining  at  Bedingham,  to  which  I  now  return. 

After  the  furrows  are  drawn  all  loose  soil  is  neatly  cleared  from 
them  with  a  shovel.  Then  the  drainers  begin  their  task.  Generally 
they  labour  in  pairs,  agreeing  to  drain  the  field  by  piece-work  on 
payment  of  so  much/^r  rod.  In  this  fashion  hardy,  untiring  men 
can  earn  a  good  deal  more  than  the  usual  daily  wage,  although, 
draining  being  so  laborious,  they  are  in  any  case  somewhat  better 
paid  for  it  than  for  other  kinds  of  work.  It  is  curious  to  watch 
them  at  their  toil.  They  seldom  do  anything  hurriedly  or  seem 
to  over-exert  themselves.  I  have  never  seen  a  labourer  employed 
about  his  work  show  any  sign  of  physical  distress,  however  hard  it 
may  chance  to  be  ;  that  is  to  say,  his  colour  does  not  change  or  his 
breathing  come  quicker,  nor  does  he  turn  faint  or  weaken  about 
the  knees.  This  is  because  he  knows  how  to  use  his  strength — how 
much,  in  short,  he  can  expend  daily  without  overdrawing  the 
account. 

Now,  one  unaccustomed  to  labour  who  has  suddenly  to  under- 
take it  will  almost  invariably  make  the  mistake  of  working  too 
hard,  or  too  quickly,  and  thereby  exhausting  himself.  When  I 
was  a  young  fellow  I  owned  a  farm  in  South  Africa,  and  as  my 
partner  and  I  were  determined  to  show  a  good  example  to  the 
Kaffirs  and  wished  to  earn  as  much  as  we  could,  we  laboured  with 
our  own  hands,  a  thing  which  very  few  white  men  do  out  there  if 


JANUARY  77 

they  are  in  a  position  to  make  anyone  else  labour  for  them.     Our 
work  consisted  principally  in  building  sod  walls,  making  bricks, 
iid  cutting  hay  with  a  machine. 

The  bricks  were  heavy  enough,  but  it  was  the  wall-building 
rhat  exhausted  me,  as  those  awful  sods  never  seemed  to  weigh  less 
than  half  a  hundredweight  and  there  was  an  infinite  supply  of 
them.  In  fact,  sod-walling  knocked  me  up,  and  this  I  attribute 
to  the  fact  that  I  worked  too  hard  through  want  of  training  to  the 
game.  An  ordinary  labourer  no  stronger  than  I  was  would  have 
placed  sods  all  day  without  feeling  more  than  comfortably  tired  at 
the  end  of  it,  but  he  would  have  placed  them  more  slowly.  Mine 
was  the  old  mistake  of  trop  de  zele. 

Grass-cutting  was  the  lightest  work  of  these  various  pastoral 
occupations,  although  in  Africa  even  grass-cutting  has  its  risks. 
Our  custom  was  to  yoke  four  oxen  on  to  the  machine.  This  team 
was  led  by  my  partner,  while  I  sat  on  the  seat  and  managed  the 
lever  that  lifts  the  knives — an  anxious  task,  for  the  flat  top  of  the 
mountain  where  we  cut  the  hay  was  peppered  over  with  large  stones 
which,  if  struck  full  by  the  knife-sheaths,  might  have  smashed 
the  machine — a  valuable  thing  in  those  days — all  to  fragments. 
The  stones,  however,  were  not  so  bad  as  the  ant-bear  holes,  which 
in  some  cases  it  was  impossible  to  see,  although  very  often  they 
were  several  feet  in  diameter.  Into  these  from  time  to  time  one 
of  the  iron  wheels  would  fall  with  a  bump,  and  then  the  problem 
was  for  the  operator  to  prevent  himself  from  being  thrown  off  the 
seat  on  to  the  knives  and  hacked  to  pieces  by  them. 

Once  cut,  the  process  of  haymaking  was  simple.  We  never 
attempted  to  turn  the  grass,  but  left  it  to  dry  for  a  day  in  the  hot 
sun.  Then,  as  we  lacked  carts,  by  the  help  of  a  horse-rake  of  our 
own  manufacture  we  dragged  the  stuff  into  large  cocks  about  the 
size  of  a  Kaffir  hut,  and  covered  it  with  old  waggon-cloths.  In  this 
way,  as  the  grass  was  plentiful  and  we  worked  hard,  on  one  occa- 
sion we  made  in  about  three  weeks  a  bulk  of  hay  which  we  sold  to 
the  Commissariat  for  over  200/. ;  for,  as  a  war  was  in  progress  at 
the  time,  fodder  was  in  considerable  demand.     This  proved  the 


78  A    FARMER!S    YEAR 

most  profitable  bit  of  farming  that  ever  I  did,  and  I  am  always 
proud  to  remember  that  I  once  earned  240/.,  or  the  half  of  it,  by 
the  labour  of  my  own  hands. 

To  return  from  Rooi  Point  to  Bedingham.  The  drains  having 
been  cleared,  the  modus  operandi  is  as  follows  :  First  one  man 
goes  down  the  line  digging  out  a  spit  of  soil  with  his  draining-spade, 
a  narrow,  heavy  tool  furnished  with  a  projecting  bar  upon  which 
the  foot  is  set.  It  takes  three  cuts  of  this  spade,  each  of  them 
driven  home  up  to  the  projecting  bar,  to  loosen  the  spit,  that 
with  a  slow  heave  of  the  labourer's  body  and  a  quick  movement  of 
his  arm  is  then  thrown  out  to  one  side.  After  him  comes  his 
mate,  armed  with  a  still  narrower  tool,  who,  in  like  fashion,  cuts 
out  and  removes  a  deeper  spit.  This  work  is  even  harder  than 
that  of  the  first  man.  since  No.  2  is  now  digging  in  primaeval  clay, 
which  at  Bedingham  is  about  the  toughest  stuff  that  I  ever  saw. 
If  anyone  doubts  it,  let  him  get  some  upon  his  boots  on  a  wet  day 
and  then  try  to  get  it  off  again.  When  a  suitable  length  of  drain 
has  been  done  out  thus  to  the  depth  of  a  double  spit,  No.  2  man 
takes  another  instrument  called  a  scoop,  something  like  a  trowel 
with  the  handle  set  more  or  less  at  right  angles,  and  with  it  cleans 
the  bottom  of  the  drain,  into  which  it  exactly  fits,  till  it  is  quite 
neat  and  level.  Then,  having  first  removed  with  his  fingers  any 
little  clods  or  other  obstructions  that  may  have  fallen  into  it,  he 
lifts  bushes  from  the  heaps  that  are  laid  at  intervals  along  the 
course  of  the  drain,  and  packs  a  sufficient  quantity  of  them  into 
the  cutting,  thrusting  them  down  to  the  narrow  bottom  of  the  V 
by  means  of  a  forked  stick.  These  bushes,  by  the  way,  must  not 
be  mere  hedge  trimmings,  but  good  stout  stuff  of  five  or  six  years' 
growth,  otherwise  they  will  rot  long  before  their  time. 

When  the  bushes  have  been  thrust  home  clods  of  clay  are 
thrown  loosely  into  the  cutting  to  fill  it  up,  and  practically  the  drain 
is  finished.  These  drains,  by  the  way,  are  generally  cut  about 
six  or  eight  yards  apart.  '  They  do  not,  for  the  most  part,  run 
direct  into  the  receiving  ditch,  but  into  another  drain  drawn  at 
right  angles,  which  is  called  a  '  lead,'  and  in  the  case  of  tile  drains 


JANUAR  V  79 

is  furnished  with  larger  pipes.  From  this  lead  *  eyes  '  open  into 
the  ditch  wherever  may  be  convenient. 

To  contemplate  the  spectacle  of  two  men  commencing  to  drain 
a  great  expanse  of  six  or  eight  acres  of  stiff  clay  land  on  some  dull 
and  cheerless  day  in  January  is  to  understand  the  splendid 
patience  of  developed  man,  that  gift  by  which  he  has  been  able  to 
Hft  himself  from  the  level  of  the  savage,  or  as  some  believe 
(although  I  am  not  one  of  them)  from  the  moral  and  physical  status 
of  the  gorilla.  The  task  looks  so  vast  in  the  miserable  grey  light ; 
it  seems  almost  impossible,  indeed,  that  two  men  should  find  the 
strength  to  dig  out  all  those  long  lines  of  trenches,  or  at  least  that 
they  should  have  the  spirit  to  attempt  it.  Yet  if  you  speak  to 
them  you  will  find  that  they  are  not  in  the  least  depressed  at  the 
prospect,  in  fact  the  only  thing  which  troubles  them  is  the  fear 
lest  frost  or  heavy  snow  should  force  them  to  pause  in  their 
monotonous  labour.  Go  away,  and  return  in  about  ten  weeks' 
time,  and,  if  the  weather  has  kept  open,  probably  you  will  find 
them  engaged  in  finishing  the  last  cut,  with  dozens  of  long 
rough  furrows  on  the  hither  side  of  them,  each  of  which  shows  a 
completed  drain. 

The  strange  part  of  the  thing  is  that  such  toilers  betray  not 
the  least  delight  at  the  termination  of  their  long  labour.  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  agricultural  labourer  cares  little 
for  change  or  variety  in  his  work ;  that  if  he  were  paid  what  he 
considered  a  satisfactory  wage  he  would  be  content  to  go  on  till 
he  grew  old  digging  drains  in  the  same  flat  clay  field  through  the 
same  miserable  January  weather.  Perhaps  this  is  because  so  little 
change  and  variety  come  his  way,  poor  fellow !  except  that  of  the 
mutable  face  of  Nature,  whereof,  so  far  as  one  can  discover,  very 
often  he  takes  but  small  account. 

Janua7-y  15. — The  mild,  windless  weather  continues,  bringing 
with  it  a  great  deal  of  influenza  and  other  sickness.  It  is,  how- 
ever, a  splendid  open  time  for  farmers ;  thus,  to-day,  at  a  season 
of  the  year  when  very  often  everything  is  frost-bound,  I  have  three 


«o  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

ploughs  going  on  the  farm,  while  carts  are  carrying  dead  leaves 
from  the  shrubbery  to  the  yards,  and  mud  '  fyed  '  from  a  pond  is 
being  dumped  into  heaps  to  be  spread  upon  the  back  lawn.  To- 
day also  we  have  begun  felling  the  undergrowth  on  the  Bath  Hills, 
most  of  which  has  not  been  cut  for  the  last  twelve  or  fourteen 
years.  In  properly  managed  woodlands  the  fell  ought  to  be  taken 
every  seven  years ;  indeed,  in  considerable  woods  it  is  divided 
into  seven  portions  for  this  purpose,  one  portion  being  cut  each 
year,  when  the  stouter  stuff  is  split  for  hurdles,  and  the  rest,  of 
less  substance,  twisted  into  another  form  of  hurdle  which  is  known 
as  a  '  lift,'  the  remaining  brushwood  being  tied  for  faggots. 

In  another  part  of  Norfolk,  where  I  was  born,  I  remember  my 
father  taking  a  visitor  who  had  been  bred  in  London  round  the 
Big  Wood,  and  elaborately  explaining  to  her  how  one-seventh  of 
it  was  cut  down  each  year.  '  Dear  me  ! '  she  exclaimed,  staring 
at  some  oaks  in  the  fell  which  might  have  seen  between 
two  and  three  hundred  winters,  '  I  never  knew  before  that  trees 
grew  so  big  in  seven  years.'  The  story  reminds  me  of  that  of 
another  lady  whom  I  escorted  to  a  field  where  we .  were  drilling 
wheat.  I  showed  her  some  of  the  grain,  and,  as  she  did  not  seem 
to  recognise  it,  explained  to  her  that  it  was  the  origin  of  the 
common  or  domestic  loaf.  '  What  ! '  she  exclaimed  incredulously, 
'  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  bread  is  made  out  of  those  little 
hard  things  ?  I  always  thought  that  it  came  from  that  fine  white 
stuff  which  grows  in  flowers  ! '  Evidently  there  was  some  confusion 
in  the  lady's  mind  between  flour  and  flowers.  Exactly  what  it  was 
it  is  not  now  safe  to  ask  her  to  explain.  Indeed,  she  boldly 
repudiates  the  story. 

It  will  be  observed  that  of  these  various  agricultural  operations 
which  are  now  in  progress,  only  one,  the  felling,  can  be  carried  on  m 
frost,  while  even  that  must  cease  during  snow  or  heavy  rain.  Well- 
to-do  people  often  express  a  wish  for  a  'good  old-fashioned  winter,' 
but  they  do  not  understand  what  hardship  this  means  to  the  poor, 
with  whom  fuel  is  scanty,  and  who  have  to  earn  their  daily  bread 
by  labouring  on  the  land.     The  poor,  who  do  not  skate  or  make 


JANUARY  81 

snowballs,  pray  for  an  open  winter  ;  although,  indeed,  frost  in 
moderation  is  a  good  thing  for  the  land,  as  it  pulverises  the  earth 
and  destroys  noxious  insects  by  the  thousand. 

To-day  I  saw  the  first  snowdrops  blooming  in  the  garden. 

In  walking  over  the  eight-acre  meadow  on  Baker's  to  look  at 
the  dykes  which  the  man  has  now  finished  drawing,  I  heard  the 
partridges  calling  to  each  other  on  the  neighbouring  layer  for  the 
first  time  this  year.  I  have  not,  however,  seen  any  pairs  as  yet. 
This  meadow  is  full  of  docks,  the  result  of  long  neglect,  and  it 
will  cost  much  trouble  and  expense  to  get  rid  of  them.  On  our 
marshes,  indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  keep  clear  of  these  weeds,  for 
as  fast  as  you  pull  them  out  new  ones  establish  themselves,  sprung 
from  seed  brought  down  by  the  flood  water.  The  vitality  of  the 
dock  is  something  dreadful.  (Query :  Why  are  all  evil  things, 
even  among  herbs,  more  vigorous  and  easier  of  propagation  than 
good  things  ?  He  who  could  answer  this  question  would,  I  suppose, 
know  the  riddle  of  the  world  !)  To-day  I  picked  up  one  on 
the  wheatland,  of  which  the  root  stood  several  inches  above  the 
surface  of  the  soil.  On  pulling  it  out  of  the  earth  I  discovered 
that  its  head  was  buried  deep  in  the  ground.  Yet,  in  that 
unnatural  position,  even  thus  early  in  the  year,  it  was  growing 
vigorously,  for  from  the  crown  of  the  plant  were  springing  thick 
tufts  of  leaves,  which  on  their  journey  to  the  surface  had  bent 
themselves  into  the  shape  of  a  hook.  Another  week  or  two  and 
that  dock  would  have  been  completely  re-established,  with  the  differ- 
ence that  what  had  been  its  head  would  henceforth  be  its  tail. ' 

Ever  since  I  began  to  observe  the  ways  of  plants  I  have 
been  trying  to  discover  what  useful  part  a  dock  can  perform  in 
the  economy  of  Nature,  but  hitherto  without  the  slightest  result. 
It  is  a  great  exhauster  of  the  land,  since,  if  left  undisturbed,  it 
will  grow  to  the  dimensions  of  a  moderate-sized  carrot ;  no  animal, 

'  Where  will  a  dock  not  live  ?  On  the  shore  of  the  Island  of  Coll  in 
the  Hebrides  I  found  one  recently  flourishing  in  a  cranny  of  rock,  almost  with- 
out soil,  and  exposed  to  the  washing  of  sea  spray  and  the  full  fury  of  the 
northern  gales. 

G 


82  A    FARMER'S    YEAR 

so  far  as  I  can  learn,  will  touch  its  foliage,  and  I  think  that  evert 
grubs  and  insects  avoid  the  root,  at  least  I  never  remember  seeing 
it  at  all  eaten.  If  anyone  knows  what  its  real  use  may  be  I 
shall  be  obliged  if  he  would  inform  me.  * 

By  the  way,  taking  into  consideration  the  extraordinary  re- 
productive powers  of  this  and  other  noxious  plants,  how  does  it 
come  about  that  when  left  to  themselves  they  do  not  absolutely 
and  entirely  possess  the  land?  According  to  all  the  rules  of 
arithmetical  progression  it  would  be  easy  to  prove  that  if  you 
started  one  dock  in  the  middle  of  a  hundred-acre  field,  in  so 
many  months  or  years  that  field  must  be  nothing  but  a  tangled 
mass  of  docks.  Yet  this  would  not  be  the  case ;  docks  and  other 
weeds  there  would  be  in  plenty,  also  a  proportion  of  wholesome 
grasses.  What  regulates  the  proportion  and  keeps  the  balance  ? 
How  is  it  that  one  thing  does  not  obtain  the  mastery  ?  The 
same  problem  confronts  us  in  the  animal  world.  There  is  no 
apparent  reason  why  any  particular  noxious  pest  or  insect  should 
not  increase  to  such  an  extent  as  must  make  all  other  life  im- 
possible. Yet  it  never  does.  Even  a  bacillus  knows  where  to  stop, 
for  the  Black  Death  was  satisfied  with  killing  /la// the  population. 

On  my  way  home  I  stopped  to  see  the  cart  being  filled  from 
the  lower  clamp  of  swedes  in  the  twelve-acre  known  as  the 
Thwaite  field.  For  some  reason  or  other  these  swedes  have  rotted 
considerably.  I  can  only  suppose  that  the  mild  weather  has 
caused  them  to  ferment ;  and,  indeed,  in  such  a  season  as  we  have 
had,  they  would  have  kept  just  as  well,  or  better,  not  earthed  up  at 
all,  or  left  quite  open  at  the  top  to  allow  the  heat  to  escape. 
Perhaps,  if  the  theory  advanced  by  my  friend  at  the  audit  is 
correct,  it  applies  to  swedes  as  well  as  to  beet,  and  these  were 
'  haled '  too  dry.  Swedes  grown  with  artificial  manure  are  said  to 
rot  more  readily  than  others,  but  these  in  question  were  treated 
mth  farmyard  muck.  Curiously  enough,  there  are  many  more 
decayed  bulbs  in  the  middle  than  at  either  end  of  the  hale. 

January  19. — A  day  of  woe  and  desolation  !     My  best  ox  is 
*  For  an  answer  to  the  above  question  see  p.  230. 


JANUARY  83 

dead.  When,  somewhat  unexpectedly,  I  took  on  Baker's  Farm 
last  November,  not  having  sufficient  cattle  to  stock  it,  I  was 
obliged  to  buy  ten  head  on  Norwich  market,  which  I  did  at  a 
price  of  thirteen  pounds  apiece.  I  have  never  done  this  before, 
and,  unless  it  is  absolutely  necessary,  I  never  mean  to  do  it  again, 
as  I  look  upon  these  market  cattle  with  great  distrust.  For  the 
most  part  they  come  from  Ireland,  and  then  are  hawked  about 
from  sale  to  sale  until  their  owner  gets  what  he  considers  an 
advantageous  offer.  Thus  they  might  begin  at  Lynn  and  go  to 
Dereham,  and  thence  to  Norwich,  on  each  occasion  standing  for 
a  whole  day  in  the  market-place.  Consequently,  when  they  leave 
these  pens  the  brutes  are  ravenous,  and  pick  up  and  swallow  any 
rubbish  that  they  can  find,  thus  laying  the  foundation  of  internal 
disorders ;  also  often  enough,  although  they  may  not  show  the 
result  of  it  till  afterwards,  they  have  been  knocked  about  upon 
board  ship,  or  in  the  trucks,  or  on  the  road  by  brutal  drovers. 

The  cruelty  which  this  class  of  men  will  sometimes  show  to 
animals  in  their  charge  is  almost  incredible,  especially  if  they 
happen  to  have  had  a  glass  too  much  beer  and  the  beasts  are 
obstinate  or  troublesome.  A  year  or  so  back,  when  I  was  wait- 
ing at  Forncett  Station  for  a  train  on  market  day,  I  saw  two 
drovers  driving  pigs  up  an  inclined  plank  into  a  truck.  One 
of  these  pigs  refused  to  go  up  the  plank  and  ran  away  once  or 
twice,  whereupon  the  men  beat  it  about  the  head  with  their 
heavy  sticks  till  it  was  three-parts  stunned  and  the  blood  came 
from  its  ears  and  nostrils.  Fortunately  I  had  a  minute  or  two  to 
spare  before  the  train  came  in,  and  was  able  to  employ  it  in 
a  rapid  visit  to  the  police.  These  men  were  afterwards  prosecuted 
for  cruelty  to  animals,  but  I  do  not  know  with  what  result,  as  I 
was  away  from  home  at  the  time. 

A  few  days  after  their  arrival  here  one  or  two  of  these  pur- 
chased oxen,  which  were  fine-grown  but  rather  poor  Irish  beasts, 
showed  signs  of  not  being  very  well.  Hood  and  I  were  afraid  lest 
they  might  be  about  to  develop  an  infectious  disease,  for  that  risk 
he  who  buys  cattle  on  the  market  must  take  also.     They  recovered, 

G  2 


84  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

however,  and  went  on  fairly  until  to-day.  Then,  as  Hood  was  on 
his  way  to  visit  them,  he  met  the  boy  whose  business  it  is  to  feed 
the  beasts  at  Baker's  running  to  seek  him  in  great  fright  with 
the  news  that  one  of  the  oxen  (of  course  the  biggest  and  best) 
was  'blown.'  Blown  he  was  sure  enough,  for  there  he  lay  on 
his  back,  swollen  to  almost  twice  his  size,  his  legs  feebly  kicking 
in  the  air.  He  must  have  been  in  this  condition  for  some  time, 
perhaps  the  best  part  of  an  hour,  and,  had  the  case  been  reported 
at  once,  probably  he  could  have  been  cured  by  means  of  a 
drink  such  as  all  cattle-owners  keep  at  hand.  But  lads  are  not  so 
observant  as  they  might  be,  and  thus  it  came  about  that  the  youth 
in  charge  never  noticed  his  condition  until  too  late,  though  I  think 
that  he  will  be  more  careful  in  future.  Blowing,  or  'hoven,'it 
may  be  explained  for  the  benefit  of  the  uninitiated,  results  from  the 
gluttony  of  cattle,  that  sometimes  fill  themselves  so  full  with  food 
that  in  the  fermentation  which  ensues  there  is  no  room  for  the 
gases  to  escape.  Then  the  pressure  seems  to  close  the  pipes,  and 
they  fall  upon  their  backs,  where  they  lie  kicking  violently  until 
the  gases,  pushing  upon  the  heart,  stop  it,  and  the  interesting 
sufferer  expires,  like  one  of  the  early  English  kings,  from  'a  surfeit 
of  good  cheer.' 

Finding  that  the  beast  was  dying.  Hood,  having  nothing  at 
hand  with  which  to  despatch  him,  drove  as  hard  as  he  could  to 
Bungay  and  brought  back  the  butcher.  Then,  not  without 
difficulty,  the  dead  animal  was  hauled  on  to  a  cart  and  taken 
to  the  town  to  be  opened.  It  was  curious  to  watch  the  demeanour 
of  the  other  oxen  in  the  yard  while  these  melancholy  scenes  were, 
in  progress.  They  sniffed  at  the  carcass,  whisked  their  tails, 
and  gambolled  awkwardly  as  though  they  were  experiencing 
some  gentle  and  pleasing  excitement.  I  have  often  heard  it 
said  that  cattle  are  terrified  at  the  smell  of  blood,  but  in 
this  case  I  could  not  see  a  sign  of  fear  about  them,  although 
undoubtedly  they  understood  that  something  unusual  was 
going  on. 

It  would  be  interesting  if  anyone  could  discover  what  is  the 


JANUARY  8s 

exact  measure  of  an  ox's  intelligence.  Here,  where  they  are  con- 
fined in  yards,  fatting,  it  would  seem  to  be  almost  entirely  limited 
to  matters  connected  with  the  food  which  they  gorge  so  persistently. 
But  that  oxen  are  not  altogether  fools  will  be  evident  to  anyone 
who,  like  myself,  has  had  considerable  experience  of  them  in 
Southern  Africa,  where  they  are  the  draught  animals  of  the  land. 
Notably  they  are  very  clever  in  finding  their  way  across  country  to 
the  place  where  they  were  bred,  or  where  they  have  lived  a  long 
while,  sometimes  for  a  distance  of  hundreds  of  miles,  though  I 
very  much  doubt  whether,  in  the  case  of  oxen,  this  is  not  instinct 
rather  than  intelligence. 

That  in  the  case  of  horses  it  is  intelligence  I  think  I  can  prove 
by  the  following  story  :  When  I  lived  in  Africa  I  had  a  hunting 
horse  called  Moresco,  a  remarkable  beast,  of  great  speed,  endurance, 
and  sure-footedness.  This  creature  was  so  clever  that  I  have  known 
him  resort  to  extraordinary  artifices  to  obtain  food,  such  as  lying 
down  and  wriggling  himself  upon  his  side  underneath  a  waggon 
till  he  could  reach  the  sack  where  the  mealies  were  kept  and  gnaw 
a  hole  in  it  with  his  teeth.  Then,  still  lying  on  his  side,  he 
devoured  most  of  the  contents.  Also,  once  he  broke  open  a  door 
to  get  at  the  forage  stored  behind  it.  When  I  was  travelling  with 
him  on  circuit  through  New  Scotland,  the  great  horse-breeding 
district  of  the  Transvaal,  Moresco  one  night  broke  the  riem  with 
which  he  was  tied  to  the  waggon  and  made  off  after  a  troop  of  mares. 
We  searched  for  him  without  avail,  and  at  length,  as  it  was 
absolutely  necessary  that  we  should  open  Court  in  a  certain  town 
on  a  fixed  day,  we  were  obliged  to  abandon  him.  I  think  it  was 
three  mornings  afterwards  that  I  climbed  out  of  the  waggon  at  day- 
light to  find  Moresco  standing  untied  among  our  other  horses.  As 
roads  in  this  part  of  South  Africa  in  those  days  were  nothing  but 
tracks  wandering  hither  and  thither  across  the  veldt,  of  which  we 
had  crossed  many  during  the  time  while  he  was  lost,  I  can  only 
suppose  that  this  horse,  when  he  was  tired  of  the  company  of  the 
mares,  had  deliberately  taken  up  our  spoor  and  followed  it  till  he 
found  us  forty  or  fifty  miles  awav. 


86  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

A  year  or  two  afterwards  Moresco  was  stolen  from  Newcastle, 
in  Natal,  where  I  was  then  living,  and  for  six  months  we  mourned 
him  as  lost  beyond  redemption.  One  day,  however,  the  poor 
creature,  a  mere  scaffolding  of  skin  and  bones,  with  a  dreadful 
hole  almost  through  his  withers  produced  by  neglected  sore  back, 
was  found  wandering  about  upon  the  farm.  Subsequent  inquiries 
went  to  show  that  the  man  who  stole  Moresco  had  ridden  him  into 
the  Cape  Colony,  nearly  a  thousand  miles  away,  and  that  the  horse 
had  escaped  thence  and  found  a  path  back  to  his  home. 

The  end  of  this  horse,  the  most  remarkable  which  I  ever  knew, 
was  so  pathetic  that  I  will  tell  it.  He  was  what  is  called  salted, 
that  is  to  say,  he  had  survived  the  horse-sickness,  and  it  was 
supposed,  therefore,  that  he  could  not  catch  it  again.  This, 
however,  proved  to  be  an  error ;  indeed,  my  experience  goes  to 
show  that  very  few  horses  are  so  thoroughly  salted  that  they  will 
not  re- develop  the  sickness,  generally  in  a  different  form,  under 
conditions  favourable  to  that  disease.  Moresco's  state  when  he 
escaped  from  the  thief  in  the  Cape  Colony  was  such  that  had  he 
been  any  other  animal  I  should  have  shot  him.  As  an  old 
favourite  and  companion  he  was  kept  and  nursed,  however,  in 
the  hope  that  he  might  ultimately  recover.  But  1881,  the  year  of 
the  Boer  war,  was  a  dreadful  season  for  sickness ;  I  remember 
that  we  lost  two  hundred  pounds'  worth  of  horses  by  it  in  a  single 
week.  At  last  the  plague  seized  upon  poor  old  Moresco  also.  \Ve 
did  what  we  could  for  him — which  was  little  enough,  for,  though 
animals  occasionally  recover,  there  is  no  real  remedy  for  horse- 
sickness — and  then  were  obliged  to  leave  him  to  take  his  chance. 

At  the  rear  of  my  house  at  Rooi  Point  stood  a  wall  of  loose 
stones  nearly  four  foot  high,  with  a  gate  in  it  which  was  shut  in 
the  evening.  About  midnight  we  were  awakened  by  the  sound 
of  a  clumsy  knocking  upon  the  back  door.  On  investigating  the 
cause  it  was  found  that  poor  Moresco,  feeling  himself  dying,  had 
contrived  to  climb  the  wall  and  was  seeking  our  assistance  and 
calling  attention  to  his  sad  state  by  the  only  means  in  his  power, 
namely,  by  knocking  at  the  door.    Nothing  could  be  done  for  him, 


JANUARY  87 

so  he  was  driven  through  the  gate,  and  in  the  morning  we  found 
him  dead  not  far  away. 

By  way  of  illustration  of  this  story  I  may  add  that  I  remember, 
when  I  lived  in  Pretoria,  another  instance  of  a  horse  belonging  to 
an  acquaintance,  which,  on  feeling  itself  mortally  stricken  with 
sickness,  came  and  pawed  at  the  door  of  his  house.  Also,  the 
animal  of  which  I  have  spoken,  Moresco,  was  an  exception  among 
his  kind — they  say  that  every  man  owns  one  perfect  beast  in  his 
life,  and  Moresco  was  mine.  It  is  by  no  means  wise,  however, 
always  to  trust  to  the  instinct  of  horses,  and  especially  to  their  sup- 
posed faculty  of  finding  their  way  home  upon  a  dark  night.  Once 
I  did  this  near  Maritzburg,  in  Natal,  with  the  result  that  presently 
I  found  myself,  with  the  horse,  at  the  bottom  of  a  stone-pit ! 

To  return  to  the  case  of  the  oxen.  Although  in  some  par- 
ticulars they  show  undoubted  intelligence,  in  many  ways  they 
are  great  fools.  Thus  they  seem  to  have  no  knowledge  of  what 
is  or  is  not  good  for  them  to  eat.  In  Natal  there  grows  a 
herb  called  '  tulip,'  which  is  almost  certain  death  to  cattle,  a  fact 
with  which  they  must  have  been  acquainted  for  generations. 
Yet  they  seem  to  eat  it  greedily  whenever  they  get  the  chance. 
Once  I  lost  about  twenty  valuable  trek-oxen  from  this  cause  alone. 
This  incident,  and  the  tale  of  horse-sickness,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
recent  record  of  rinderpest,  will  show  the  reader  that  farming 
in  South  Africa  is  not  without  its  risks.  Indeed,  I  am  acquainted 
with  no  country  where  the  waste  of  animal  life  is  so  constant  and 
tremendous,  although  doubtless  as  the  land  becomes  enclosed  and 
proper  buildings  and  winter  food  are  provided  it  will  greatly  lessen. 

Returning  to  the  Home  Farm  after  watching  the  funeral  pro- 
cession of  the  departed  ox,  I  found  the  pork-butcher,  who  had  ar- 
rived there  to  execute  a  pig.  He  informed  me  that  he  had  cured 
blown  cattle  by  giving  them  salt  and  water,  and  drawing  a  sack 
over  their  heads,  making  it  fast  about  their  necks.  The  salt  and 
water  might  do  something,  but  I  confess  that  I  do  not  understand 
the  sack.  Another  local  recipe  is  to  shut  them  up  in  a  loose-box, 
exclude  all  air,  and  heap  sacks  upon  them.     My  own  opinion  is 


88  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

that  animals  which  recover  under  this  treatment  would  not  have 
died  in  any  case.  I  believe  also  that  the  best  preventive  against 
<  blowing '  is  to  have  the  root  they  feed  on  pulped  and  mixed 
with  the  chaff  twelve  hours  before  it  is  given  to  the  cattle.  This 
excellent  plan  allows  fermentation  to  take  place  and  the  gases  to 
escape  before  the  food  reaches  the  stomach  of  the  ox.  It  is, 
however,  very  difficult  to  persuade  farmers  and  bailiffs  to  adopt  it, 
partly  because  they  are  prejudiced  about  the  matter,  and  partly 
because  it  requires  a  Httle  more  thought  and  trouble,  and  a 
proper  place  is  necessary  where  the  pulped  root  can  be  kept  safe 
and  clean  until  it  is  wanted. 

January  20. — To  day  is  extraordinarily  mild  for  the  time  of 
year,  and  all  the  birds  are  singing  with  a  full  voice  as  though 
spring  were  already  come.  The  garden,  too,  shows  many  signs 
of  life,  and  one  crocus  has  just  opened  its  gold  cup  upon  the  north 
slope  of  the  lawn  bank.  Three  ploughs  are  going  upon  the  eight- 
acre  on  Baker's  Farm,  No.  41,  turning  back  the  soil  which  was 
ploughed  for  barley  a  few  weeks  ago.  This  is  a  stiffish  bit  of  land, 
and,  if  the  weather  holds  fairly  dry,  a  second  ploughing  will  no 
doubt  do  it  a  great  deal  of  good.  Should  it  chance  to  come  on 
wet,  however,  it  may  probably  work  it  harm,  as  the  freshly  turned 
soil  will  then  run  together  into  a  kind  of  cake.  Still,  since  the 
season  holds  so  dry,  it  seems  worth  while  to  take  the  risk. 

This  afternoon  I  saw  the  butcher  who  despatched  the  blown  ox. 
He  told  me  it  is  so  bruised  from  long  struggling  on  its  back  after 
it  '  went  down '  that  the  meat  is  of  little  value,  and  added  that  he 
dared  not  send  it  to  London  for  fear  lest  we  should  all  get  into 
trouble.  I  begged  him  on  no  account  to  do  anything  of  the  sort, 
as  I  do  not  wish  to  appear  before  a  metropolitan  magistrate  in  the 
character  of  a  vendor  of  doubtful  meat.  He  assured  me  that  he 
will  not,  but  as  a  matter  of  curiosity  I  should  like  to  know  what 
becomes  of  this  class  of  beef  So  far  as  I  can  gather  it  is  consumed 
on  board  the  herring-smacks ;  smacksmen,  it  would  seem,  are  not 
dainty  feeders. 


JANUARY  89 

January  23. — To-day,  Sunday,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
imaginable,  very  mild,  with  a  fresh  west  wind  and  bright 
sunshine.  I  walked  over  Baker's  Farm  and  found  the  wheat 
looking  wonderfully  well,  while  the  grass  seems  to  be  growing 
visibly.  Ths  sunset  to-night  was  especially  lovely — a  large 
glowing  ball  of  fire  without  a  cloud  to  dim  it. 

On  Friday,  the  day  after  my  last  entry,  we  had  more  bad 
luck,  for  another  of  the  bullocks  at  Baker's  was  taken  sick ;  he 
did  not  seem  to  be  blown,  but  stood  by  himself,  his  back 
humped,  his  eye  dull  and  his  head  hanging.  The  farrier  says  that 
he  is  suffering  from  obstruction  in  his  third  stomach — it  was  news 
to  me  that  oxen  are  endowed  with  three  of  these  useful  organs.  If 
the  veterinary  thinks  so  I  suppose  that  he  is  right,  but  so  far  as  I 
can  judge  the  animal  might  just  as  well  be  suffering  from  anything 
else.  Had  we  been  in  Africa  1  should  say  that  he  had  contracted 
red-water,  of  which  he  has  certainly  many  of  the  symptoms. 

Hood  is  very  indignant  that  another  of  this  Irish  lot  should 
have  gone  wrong,  and  attributes  it  to  the  hay  that  we  took  over  by 
valuation  on  Baker's,  which  undoubtedly  is  sticklike  and  mouldy, 
whereof  he  speaks  in  terms  more  forcible  than  polite.  When  the 
ox  dies,  as  I  presume  he  will  sooner  or  later,  although  he  was 
better  yesterday,  we  shall  find  out  whether  it  is  to  his  third 
stomach  or  to  his  liver,  or  to  something  else,  that  his  decease  is  due. 
Having  satisfied  myself  that  under  no  circumstances  can  these 
brutes  return  a  halfpenny  of  profit,  I  await  the  issue  in  gloomy  calm. 

January  25. — The  lambs  are  beginning  to  come  faster; 
yesterday  I  had  two  doubles.  As  I  returned  from  looking  at 
them  I  saw  the  first  pair  of  partridges  which  I  have  noticed  this 
year  ;  also  I  observe  that  the  sparrows  are  beginning  to  build  in  the 
banksia  rose  on  the  south  side  of  the  house.  These  sparrows,  which 
breed  in  miUions  in  the  towns,  whence  they  migrate  to  the  country, 
are  a  perfect  pest  to  us,  and  I  know  not  how  to  keep  them  under. 
In  some  parts  of  the  farm  they  move  about  in  flocks  a  hundred 
strong,  and  while  the  damage  that  they  do  is  very  great,  I  have 


90  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

been  unable  to  discover  in  them  a  single  redeeming  virtue. 
They  take  coombs  of  corn  out  of  some  of  the  fields  of  wheat, 
spoiling  even  more  than  they  devour,  as  they  seem  to  like  to  pick  the 
ears  to  pieces  for  mere  mischief's  sake.  Also  they  are  very  destruc- 
tive to  young  beet,  especially  if  the  crop  has  been  planted  in  a  small 
close,  as  they  issue  from  the  hedges  on  every  side  and  tear  the 
tender  leaves  to  bits  with  their  strong  bills.  As  a  climax  to  their 
crimes  they  attack  the  swallows  and  martins,  driving  them  away 
and  taking  possession  of  their  nests.  Indeed,  sometimes  they 
kill  them,  for  I  have  picked  up  the  corpses  of  the  poor  things  with 
a  hole  pecked  through  their  skulls. 

In  former  times  Sparrow  Clubs  used  to  exist  in  these  parts, 
under  the  provisions  of  which  the  farmers  of  a  district  banded 
themselves  together  to  destroy  the  common  enemy  in  any  way 
possible,  but  with  the  decline  of  agriculture  the  clubs  have 
vanished.  Now  we  are  obliged  to  rely  upon  the  destructive  in- 
stincts of  youth,  paying  so  much  a  score  to  boys  for  sparrows' 
eggs  or  young  sparrows.  Occasionally  also  in  hard  weather  a 
good  many  can  be  killed  by  laying  a  trail  of  corn,  and  when  the 
sparrows  are  feeding  in  flocks,  firing  down  it  with  a  charge  of 
dust-shot.  But  the  worst  of  this  plan  is  that  the  shooter  is  very 
apt  to  massacre  harmless  birds,  such  as  chaffinches  and  robins, 
which  come  to  pick  up  any  crumbs  that  may  fall  from  the 
sparrows'  table  and  are  involved  in  their  doom.  Of  late  patent 
basket  sparrow-traps  have  been  largely  advertised,  and  with  them 
testimonials  from  gentlemen  who  say  they  have  caught  great  num- 
bers by  their  means.  I  purchased  one  of  these  wicker  traps  for 
five  shillings,  but  the  result  showed  that  I  might  as  well  have  kept 
my  money  in  my  pocket,  as  not  one  single  sparrow  have  I  been 
able  to  catch  with  it.  I  suppose,  therefore,  that  the  race  must  be 
more  artful  about  here  than  in  the  neighbourhood  of  those  gentlemen 
who  give  the  testimonials.  According  to  the  directions,  grain  or 
crumbs  should  be  sprinkled  at  the  bottom  of  the  trap,  whereon 
the  birds  will  go  down  the  little  hole  in  the  middle  and  find 
themselves  unable  to  get  out  again.  My  experience  of  the  work- 
ing of  the  thing  has  been  that,  whereas  they  will  use  the  trap  as 


JANUARY  9t 

a  perch  gladly  enough,  not  even  the  youngest  and  most  inex- 
perienced sparrow  evinces  the  faintest  intention  of  hopping  down 
the  hole  to  investigate  its  inside  and  devour  the  dainties  spread 
to  entice  the  unwary. 

The  only  really  effectual  way  of  keeping  these  birds  under  is 
by  means  of  poisoned  wheat,  but  this,  unless  spread  with  great 
care  in  places  frequented  by  sparrows  alone,  such  as  eaves  and 
water-troughings,  is  highly  dangerous  to  all  life.  Also  the  sale  of 
it  is  illegal;  indeed,  we  have  convicted  men  for  this  offence 
before  my  own  Bench.  Still,  farmers  use  it  a  good  deal  under 
the  rose,  and,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  not  for  sparrows  only,  but  for 
pigeons  and  rooks  also,  with  the  result  that  a  great  deal  of  game 
and  many  harmless  birds  are  poisoned.  On  the  whole,  taking 
one  farm  with  another,  the  bold,  assertive,  conquering  sparrow, 
that  Avian  Rat,  as  someone  has  aptly  named  him,  pursues  his  career 
of  evil  almost  unchecked,  producing  as  many  young  sparrows  as 
it  pleases  him  to  educate.  Indeed,  I  do  not  understand  how  it 
comes  about  that  we  are  not  entirely  eaten  up  with  these  mis- 
chievous birds,  except  for  the  reason,  as  I  have  said  on  a  previous 
page,  that  there  is  some  mysterious  power  which  preserves  a 
balance  amongst  all  things  that  live  and  grow. 

I  observed  also,  in  the  course  of  my  walk,  that  the  moles  seem 
to  be  very  numerous  this  year,  possibly  on  account  of  the  mildness 
of  the  season,  for  some  of  the  meadows,  and  especially  the  lands  at 
the  foot  of  the  Vineyard  Hills,  are  dotted  all  over  with  the  brown 
heaps  of  soil  thrown  up  by  them.  Farmers  dislike  moles,  and  allege 
much  evil  against  them ;  but  I  believe  that  they  do  more  good 
than  harm,  at  least  on  pastures,  by  bringing  up  so  many  tons 
of  quite  fresh  earth  from  the  subsoil,  which,  when  harrowed  and 
brushed,  gives  the  grasses  a  dressing  "of  new  mould  that  must 
benefit  them  much.  Indeed,  I  doubt  whether  some  pastures 
which  are  frequently  mown  and  never  manured  would  keep  their 
fertility  half  as  well  as  they  do  were  it  not  for  the  action  of  moles 
and  worms.  In  his  remarkable  book  upon  earth-worms  Darwin 
has  shown  how  great  is  the  work  they  do  upon  tlie  surface  of  the 
world,  and  I  believe  that  one  part  of  it  is  to  promote  its  fertility. 


92  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

When  entering  the  house  after  walking  about  the  garden, 
the  door  shut  behind  me  with  a  bang.  As  it  chanced,  I  wished 
to  go  out  again  for  some  reason,  and  on  reaching  the  steps  I  saw 
a  curious  sight.  A  little  rough  terrier  dog,  called  Di,  hearing  the 
door  slam— usually  a  signal  to  her  that  I  am  starting  on  my 
rounds— had  run  to  seek  me  from  some  hole  or  corner  where  she 
was  engaged  in  her  hourly  occupation  of  hunting  a  quite  uncatch- 
able  rat.  Not  being  able  to  see  me,  for  I  had  gone  into  the  house, 
not  come  out  of  it — a  solution  of  the  mystery  which  did  not  strike 
her — she  set  to  work  to  trace  my  spoor,  following  every  loop  and 
turn  that  I  had  made  as  I  wandered  about  the  garden,  and  finally 
striking  out  across  the  tennis-court  and  over  the  lawn  beyond, 
which  I  had  crossed  on  my  homeward  way.  The  curious  thing 
was  not  her  following  my  spoor,  for  I  have  often  seen  her  do  this 
before,  but  the  persistence  and  cleverness  with  which  she  followed 
it  backwards.  What  I  should  like  to  know — and  perhaps  some 
reader  of  this  book  can  inform  me  on  the  matter — is  whether 
there  is  anything  about  the  scent  left  by  man  or  beast  to  enable  a 
dog  or  other  creature  on  the  spoor  to  tell  which  way  it  runs.  This 
instance  of  Di  would  seem  to  show  that  there  is  none  ;  but,  after 
all,  it  is  only  one  example,  and  she  may  be  an  undiscerning  little 
dog.  Also,  it  must  be  remembered  that  her  mind  was  full  of  the 
preconceived  idea  that  I  had  gone  out  of  the  house.  It  never 
occurred  to  her  that  I  might  have  returned  into  it. 

This  morning  I  met  Hood  as  he  was  driving  the  unlambed 
ewes  from  the  little  All  Hallows  farm  meadow,  where  they  are  now 
confined  at  night,  to  the  hay-stubble  on  Baker's,  which  we  are 
folding  before  sowing  it  with  oats.  I  stood  talking  with  him  for  a 
minute  or  two,  while  the  sheep  went  through  the  gateway  on  to  the 
main  road.  When  we  followed,  presently,  not  one  of  them  was  to 
be  seen,  till  an  ominous  sound  of  munching  caused  me  to  look 
over  a  neighbouring  fence.  There  were  the  ewes,  the  whole  lot 
of  them,  in  the  well-kept  garden  of  one  of  my  men — at  least  it  had 
been  a  garden,  but  that  five  minutes  had  sufficed  to  reduce  it  to  a 
trodden  wilderness  with  cabbage-stalks  sticking  up  here  and  there. 


JANUARY  93 

I  shouted  aloud  to  Hood,  whereupon  the  ewes,  of  their  own  accord, 
and  without  waiting  to  be  driven,  stopped  gobbUng  the  remains  of 
the  cabbages  and  ran  to  a  hole,  which  they  must  have  made  in  the 
thick  fence  with  considerable  efibrt  and  difficulty  while  we  were 
talking,  and  through  it,  one  by  one,  back  into  the  road.  This 
spontaneous  retreat  seems  to  prove  that  they  knew  perfectly  well 
that  they  were  doing  what  they  should  not.  Indeed,  I  think  that 
sheep  are  nothing  like  so  foolish  as  they  are  supposed  to  be,  though 
nearly  all  their  intelligence  seems  to  concentrate  itself  upon  matters 
connected  with  their  provender,  for  of  the  ovine  race  it  may  be  said 
with  truth,  '  their  god  is  their  belly.'  It  is  curious  to  notice  how 
seldom  they  stop  eating  while  there  is  anything  left  that  excites  their 
appetite,  and  how,  after  having  fed  heavily  for  hours  in  one  place, 
on  the  gate  being  opened,  they  will  rush  to  another  in  the  hope  of 
finding  more  food  there.  Thus  this  very  morning,  so  soon  as  they 
had  escaped  from  the  ruined  garden,  they  set  off  down  the  road, 
round  the  proper  turn,  to  the  gate  of  the  field  where  they  are 
penned  in  the  daytime,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  Here, 
heavy  as  they  are  in  lamb,  they  broke  into  a  full  gallop  in  their 
eagerness  to  reach  the  turnips  heaped  on  the  land  and  steal  some 
before  their  shepherd  arrived  to  put  them  in  the  pen. 

This  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham,  and  found  the  wheats 
looking  wonderfully  green  and  thick,  so  much  so  that  in  the  case 
of  two  of  the  pieces,  Nos.  6  and  8  on  the  plan,  they  will,  I  think, 
have  to  be  thinned  by  harrowing.  The  crops  on  these  fields  last 
year  were  respectively  beans  and  pease,  and  doubtless  we  owe  this 
fine  prospect  to  the  nitrogen  collected  from  the  atmosphere  by 
these  leguminous  plants.  The  remaining  piece  of  wheat,  No.  9, 
is  not  nearly  so  strong,  I  suppose  because  it  is  grown  on  flag-land, 
this  field  having  been  a  clover  layer  last  year,  off  which  a  cut  of 
hay  was  taken,  followed,  as  the  autumn  proved  suitable  to  its  ripen- 
ing, by  a  crop  of  seed. 

I  found  Moore,  who  is  in  local  charge  of  this  farm,  baulking  or 
earthing  up  for  root.  He  said,  and  I  agreed  with  him,  that  the 
land  had  never  been  known  to  work  so  well  at  this  time  of  vear 


94  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

since  we  had  to  do  with  it,  the  long-continued  drought  having 
made  it  friable  and  tender,  whereas  in  other  Januaries  often  it  is 
hard  with  frost  or  so  stiff  with  wet  that,  if  an  attempt  is  made  to 
stir  the  soil,  it  comes  up  in  lumps  as  large  as  horses'  heads. 

The  open  season  has  been  very  fortunate  for  me  upon  this 
farm,  as,  owing  to  the  taking  over  of  Baker's,  I  was  obliged  to  draw 
a  horse  from  Bedingham,  leaving  two  only,  and  one  of  these  an 
old  mare  in  foal.  Therefore,  had  not  the  weather  remained  so 
clement  that  work  could  be  attended  to  as  it  pressed,  week  in, 
week  out,  I  might  have  been  forced  to  buy  another  horse,  which 
I  do  not  wish  to  do,  as  I  have  several  growing  animals  in  stock. 
But,  however  dry  the  season,  water  is  never  far  off  in  these  stiff 
clays.  Thus  I  could  see  it  standing  at  the  bottom  of  the  trenches 
being  cut  by  the  drainers  on  field  No.  i8,  and  especially  wherever 
they  chanced  to  have  crossed  the  line  of  an  old  drain  and  bled  it. 
By  the  way,  it  is  getting  difficult  to  find  enough  bushes  with 
which  to  finish  this  draining,  almost  all  the  suitable  stuff  having 
been  used.  There  was  plenty  of  it  when  I  took  over  this  farm, 
but  since  then  the  fences  have  gone  underground. 

To-day  I  have  been  making  a  plan  for  roofing  in  the  horse 
and  cattle  yard  at  Bedingham  with  galvanised  iron  supported  by 
oak  posts.  If  possible,  and  if  it  is  not  too  costly,  I  am  anxious  to 
deal  thus  with  all  my  open  yards,  as  I  believe  that  the  expense  of 
closing  them  in,  which,  if  one  can  provide  the  necessary  timber, 
is  not  so  very  great,  will  be  repaid  in  three  years  by  the  manure 
saved  and  the  increase  in  its  fertilising  value.  I  have  already 
three  such  sheds  erected  over  yards,  and  there  is  no  comparison 
between  the  stuff  which  comes  from  beneath  them  and  that  from  the 
open  pen,  which  is  frequently  little  better  than  dirty,  rain-washed 
straw.  Another  thing  is  that  roofed-in  yards  mean  a  great  saving 
of  the  amount  of  litter  used,  and  consequently  less  carting  both 
in  and  out.  I  doubt — but  this  is,  of  course,  only  conjecture,  as 
it  is  difficult  to  arrive  at  the  exact  quantities — whether  the  beasts 
in  a  closed-in  yard  will  make  away  with  much  more  than  half  the 
quantity  of  straw  necessary  to  the  wellbeing  of  an  equal  number  of 


JANUARY  95 

animals  in  an  open  pen  during  a  wet  season.     Lastly,  the  cattle 
do  far  better  under  shelter. 

January  28. — The  day  before  yesterday  I  rode  to  Kessingland, 
fifteen  miles  away,  on  a  bicycle,  and  beyond  Beccles  I  stopped 
to  talk  with  an  old  labourer  who  was  hedge-trimming.  He 
told  me  that  he  was  seventy  years  of  age  and  had  worked  in  that 
neighbourhood  all  his  life,  but  that  never  yet  had  he  known  such 
a  season  for  the  time  of  year,  or  the  water  in  dykes,  ponds,  and 
springs  to  be  so  low. 

Yesterday  was  mild  and  dry,  and  all  my  three  ploughs  were 
at  work  'thwarting' — that  is  cross-ploughing — root-land  on  the 
Nunnery  Farm. 

A  good  many  more  lambs  have  been  born,  and,  with  their 
mothers,  are  established  in  comfortable  little  hurdle-made  pens  in 
the  old  barn  at  All  Hallows.  The  worst  of  this  plan  is  that  the 
lambs  get  through  the  hurdles  and  become  inextricably  mixed  in 
their  vain  attempts  to  find  their  own  mothers.  It  is  curious  to 
notice  the  behaviour  of  the  ewes  when  the  wrong  lamb  comes  to 
them.  First  they  sniff  at  it,  for  to  all  appearance  they  are  guided 
in  this  matter  by  the  sense  of  smell  alone ;  then,  if  the  result  is  un- 
satisfactory, they  simply  put  down  their  heads  and  with  a  vicious 
butt  knock  the  poor  little  creature  into  space.  Evidently  they  have 
no  affection  for  lambs  as  a  class  ;  it  is  only  their  individual  offspring 
that  claims  their  sympathy.  Yesterday  we  had  to  try  one  old  ewe 
with  about  a  dozen  different  lambs,  each  of  which  she  knocked 
over  in  the  most  cold-blooded  fashion,  A  cautious  sniff  at  the 
thirteenth  satisfied  her  that  at  length  her  missing  infant  had 
returned,  whereon  she  baa-ed  contentedly,  and  with  a  smile  of 
maternal  pride  allowed  it  to  partake  of  refreshment. 

I  noticed  for  the  first  time  the  brilliant  but  tiny  scarlet  blooms 
open  upon  the  filbert  bushes ;  by  the  number  of  them  it  should 
be  a  good  nut-year.  My  drill  was  hired  out  to  a  neighbour  to  put 
in  his  spring  beans ;  the  man  in  charge  of  it  told  me  that  they 
went  in  very  well. 


96  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

To-day  I  have  begun  drilling  my  own  spring  beans  and  pease  on 
the  eight  acres  on  Baker's,  No.  43.  This  field  has  had  a  good 
coat  of  the  manure  which  I  took  over  by  valuation,  supplemented, 
as  there  was  not  enough  available,  by  a  few  loads  of  Bungay 
compost,  road  scrapings,  &c.,  in  the  far  corner.  Like  the  rest  of 
the  farm,  it  is  foul,  and  will,  I  fancy,  give  plenty  of  work  to  the 
hoe,  for  the  plough  and  harrows  turn  up  docks  like  carrots,  to  say 
nothing  of  countless  minor  weeds.  The  tilth,  however,  is  very 
good,  and  the  beans,  with  as  much  of  the  pease  as  we  could  sow 
to-day,  went  in  beautifully,  not  a  single  seed  being  visible  after  the 
drill  had  dropped  them,  for  the  soil  ran  in  behind  it  almost  like 
dry  sand.  We  only  use  six  *  coulters '  on  the  drill,  a  seven-foot 
instrument,  in  planting  beans,  as  against  twelve  or  thirteen  for 
pease,  which  are  set  much  closer.  Coulters,  I  may  explain,  in 
case  there  should  be  any  who  do  not  know  them,  are  the  shares 
connected  with  the  body  of  the  machine,  whence  the  seed  is  lifted 
and  dropped  by  wheels  set  with  cups  through  a  number  of  flexible 
funnels  fitting  one  into  the  other.  Down  these  funnels  the  seed 
trickles  at  a  given  rate,  to  fall  grain  by  grain  into  the  trench  cut 
with  the  coulters.  Preceding  the  drill,  a  rig  or  two  ahead  of  it, 
goes  a  set  of  iron  harrows  dragged  by  two  horses,  tearing  down  the 
rough  surface  of  the  plough  and  breaking  the  clods  into  mould. 
Next  comes  the  drill  itself,  dragged  by  three  horses,  with  two  men 
in  charge  of  it.  It  is  followed  by  the  wood  harrow,  with  a  pair  of 
horses,  which  fills  in  the  furrows  made  by  the  coulters  of  the 
drill,  burying  the  seed  in  the  mould  and  completing  the  process. 

It  is  stili  early  to  drill  spring  beans  and  pease,  but  I  think 
it  wise  to  get  them  in  while  the  soil  is  in  such  good  order,  as 
in  our  uncertain  climate  it  is  impossible  to  say  what  kind  of 
weather  awaits  us. 

Some  more  lambs  were  born  to-day,  and  my  two  Southdown 
rams  were  sold  at  Bungay  market,  the  large  one  for  forty  shillings, 
and  the  smaller  for  twenty-five.  I  was  sorry  to  part  with  the  big 
ram,  as  he  is  a  good-looking  pedigree  animal,  but  these  creatures 
are  a  nuisance  to  keep  through  the   summer;    they  cannot   be 


JANUARY  97 

allowed  to  run  with  the  ewes,  as  they  would  knock  about  and 
perhaps  kill  the  lambs,  and  if  penned  up  they  are  apt  to  develop 
foot-rot.  Of  course,  in  large  flocks,  where  there  are  proper  pro- 
visions for  keeping  rams  by  themselves,  it  is  another  matter,  but 
in  the  case  of  a  little  lot  of  sheep  like  mine  it  is  best  to  get  rid  of 
them,  and  buy  or  hire  others  when  they  are  wanted. 

January  29. — This  morning  we  finished  drilling  the  pease  on 
Baker's,  No.  43,  and  also  drilled  four  acres  of  pease  on  All  Hallows, 
No.  37,  the  ten-acre  which  was  under  barley  last  year  and  is 
now  divided  into  six  acres  of  layer  and  four  of  pease.  Like  those 
sown  on  the  other  piece,  they  went  in  very  well.  In  drilling  with 
a  number  of  coulters  it  is  very  necessary  to  watch  that  nearest  to 
the  wheel,  since  the  earth  lifted  by  it  in  its  revolutions  is  apt  to 
fall  into  the  funnel  and  choke  the  lower  exit.  This  happened  to- 
day, with  the  result  that  the  centre  funnels  filled  with  pease  which 
could  not  escape,  and  necessitated  the  following  backwards  of 
the  line  cut  by  the  coulter  by  a  man  who  sowed  with  the  hand  the 
seed  that  had  missed. 

In  the  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham,  where  I  found  the 
men  getting  on  very  well  with  the  draining  of  field  No.  18. 
Bushes  by  now,  however,  have  become  scarce  indeed,  and  as  there 
is  no  fence  left  which  we  can  cut,  we  have  been  obliged  to  fall 
back  on  the  stout  growth  springing  from  the  crowns  of  pollardz. 
Here  I  found  Moore  splitting  back  the  baulks  on  one  of  the  fields 
which  he  had  earthed  up  for  root.  Yesterday  he  horse-hoed 
No.  14,  the  five  acres  of  winter  beans.  I  should  think  that  this  is 
almost  the  first  time  within  the  memory  of  living  man  that  beans 
have  been  horse-hoed  at  Bedingham  on  January  29.  The  imme- 
diate object  of  the  operation  was  to  get  rid  of  some  of  the  barley 
which  dropped  from  last  year's  crop  before  it  was  carried.  Two 
years  ago  we  learnt  a  lesson  in  this  matter  of  barley  here  at 
Ditchingham  on  the  brick-kiln  field.  No.  22.  The  season  before 
had  been  very  dry,  causing  the  grain  to  shed  in  quantity,  with  the 
result  that  in   the  following  spring  it  came  up  thick  among  the 

H 


gh  A   FARMEk'S    YEAR 

beans.  For  some  reason  or  other  we  were  unable  to  horse-hoe  it 
sufficiently  early,  and  in  the  end,  in  order  to  prevent  the  beans 
from  being  smothered,  we  were  obliged  to  pull  the  usurping 
barley  by  hand,  for  the  hoe  could  not  deal  with  it — a  tedious  and 
a  costly  process. 

I  have  seldom  seen  beans  looking  better  than  those  on  this 
piece  at  Bedingham. 

January  31. — Yesterday,  Sunday,  it  rained  sharply  during  the 
morning  but  cleared  in  the  afternoon,  when  a  gale  came  up  from 
the  south-west ;  at  night  also  there  were  flaws  of  rain.  The  large 
ox,  which  was  supposed  to  have  recovered  from  the  derangement 
of  its  third  stomach,  is  sick  again.  Now  it  grinds  its  teeth 
and  is  foaming  at  the  mouth  as  though  it  had  hydrophobia. 
My  own  opinion  is  that  none  of  them  know  from  what  the  poor 
animal  is  suffering. 

I  find  that  I  am  now  employing  fifteen  hands  in  all  on  the 
two  farms,  not  reckoning  Mrs.  Hood,  who  makes  the  butter,  or 
Mrs.  Moore,  who  attends  to  the  fowls  at  Bedingham.  This  allows 
for  nine  men  and  one  boy  on  the  home  farms,  with  four  men  and 
one  boy  at  Bedingham.  One  of  these,  however,  is  an  extra  man 
employed  by  piece-work  on  the  draining. 

To-day,  the  last  of  the  month,  is  lovely  and  spring-like,  with 
a  drying  north-west  wind.  This  morning  we  drilled  three  acres 
of  sheep's-feed  on  No.  24.  This  field  has  stood  for  two  years  under 
layer,  and  as  it  is  light  land,  before  the  flag  was  broken  up  we 
gave  it  a  dressing  of  heavy  clay  from  the  pit  in  this  garden  which 
was  enlarged  last  autumn.  Also,  it  has  been  more  or  less  manured 
with  road  and  yard  scrapings,  and  anything  else  that  we  could  find 
to  put  upon  it.  The  rain  of  yesterday  has  not  done  much  more 
than  damp  this  light  land,  so  the  seed  went  in  very  well.  We 
were  using  fifteen  coulters  on  the  drill,  and  one  coomb,  that  is  four 
bushels,  of  seed  to  the  acre. 

It  looked  a  curious  mixture  as  it  lay  in  the  boxes  or  hoppers 
of  the  drill,  oats  for  the  most  part,  mingled  with  wheat,  tares,  and 


JANUARY  99 

a  few  beans,  but  doubtless  the  sheep  will  appreciate  it  in  due 
course. 

He  who  would  fill  his  pouch  with  groats 
In  Januair  must  sow  his  oats, 

runs  the  old  saw — by  the  way,  the  word  '  groats  '  shows  that  it 
must  be  a  very  old  one — but  these  are  the  only  oats  that  I  have 
drilled  as  yet.  To-morrow,  however,  if  it  is  fine,  we  are  sending 
five  horses  to  Bedingham  to  drill  oats,  pease,  and  barley.  Never 
before  have  we  drilled  barley  so  early,  and  both  Hood  and  I 
(especially  Hood)  are  rather  doubtful  of  the  wisdom  of  so  doing  on 
heavy  land.  The  fact  is  that  the  fine,  indeed  the  extraordinary 
weather  we  have  had  this  month  has  made  us  a  little '  winter-proud,' 
as  they  say  of  wheat  that  has  grown  too  vigorously  during  the  dead 
months  of  the  year,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  before  the  sweet 
surprises  of  the  English  spring  are  done  with  our  high  hopes, 
like  the  wheat,  may  meet  with  an  unexpected  check.  Still,  I  am 
for  going  straight  ahead,  as  though  the  spring  were,  in  truth, 
already  with  us,  and  sowing  barley,  or  anything  else  if  the  land 
is  fit  to  drill. 

And  so  good-bye  to  January.     Here  are  one  or  two  saws  col- 
lected from  various   sources  for  those   who  care    for  proverbial 

wisdom : 

If  January  has  never  a  drop, 

The  barn  will  need  an  oaken  prop ; 

which  certainly  is  comforting  news  to  the  farmer  in  this  year  of 
grace.     Lest  he  be  too  elated,  however,  I  append  another : 

In  January  if  the  sun  appear, 
March  and  April  pay  full  der.r. 

Also  a  third  of  still  more  evil  import : 

If  grass  do  grow  in  Januair  or  Februair, 
it  will  grow  the  worse  for  it  all  tne  year. 


11  2 


loo  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 


FEBRUARY 

February  i. — Last  night  there  was  a  sharp  rain,  but  the 
month  has  opened  with  a  beautiful  day,  more  like  April  than 
February  weather,  the  thermometer  marking  53  degrees  in  the 
shade  and  on  a  north  wall.  In  the  afternoon  I  went  over  to 
Bedingham,  where  the  oats  were  being  drilled,  four  bushels  of 
them  to  the  acre.  They  went  in  rather  indifferently,  for  last 
night's  rain  has  already  affected  this  cold  and  sticky  soil;  also 
the  long  manure,  which,  having  no  other  available,  we  were 
obliged  to  use  for  this  field.  No.  13,  interfered  somewhat  with 
the  action  of  the  drill.  The  pease,  with  which  the  remaining 
half  of  the  same  field  is  sown,  went  in  well  this  afternoon, 
when  the  land  had  dried  somewhat  in  the  stiff  west  wind. 
To-morrow,  if  the  rain  holds  off,  we  propose  to  drill  barley  at 
Bedingham. 

February  3. — Yesterday  was  much  colder,  with  a  strong  nor'- 
west  wind,  increasing  to  a  gale,  and  a  good  deal  of  bright  sun- 
shine. There  is  one  plough  going  on  All  Hallows  Farm, 
thwarting  for  root,  but  all  the  other  horses  are  at  Bedingham 
drilling,  or  trying  to  drill,  barley,  except  one  that  is  carting  root 
into  the  shed.  We  have  set  a  fold  for  sheep  on  the  three-acre 
pasture,  No.  11.  This  was  the  first  field  that  I  laid  down  for 
permanent  grass,  and  is  the  worst  land  that  I  have  on  the  farm, 
the  seven-acre.  No.  10,  opposite  to  it  not  excepted.  It  has  now 
been  down  for  about  six  years,  and  has  reached  a  rather  critical 
stage  in  the  life-history  of  a  meadow.  As  a  good  deal  of  moss  and 
many  daisies  have  appeared  in  places  among  the  herbage,  we  have 


FEBRUARY  loi 

come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  best  chance  of  turning  it  into  a 
really  sound  pasture  is  to  sheep  it  heavily,  and  afterwards  to 
harrow  it  and  give  it  a  good  sprinkling  of  clover  seed. 

The  sky  last  night  looked  heavy  and  grey,  as  though  snow 
were  coming.  There  was  a  very  fine  sunset,  the  lights  upon  the 
Common  reflected  in  long  lines  and  arrows  from  the  clouds  above 
being  unusually  beautiful.  I  know  of  few  more  curious  and 
dreary  sounds — though  in  a  way  it  is  an  attractive  music  enough 
— than  that  of  the  wind  rushing  through  the  pine-trees  on  the  Vine- 
yard Hills  as  it  comes  to  the  ear  of  the  listener  standing  on  the 
slope  below.  I  can  only  compare  it  to  that  of  ^olian  harps  ;  there 
is  the  same  sweet  dreariness  about  the  quality  of  the  note. 

Yesterday  was  Candlemas  Day,  and  again,  if ,  we  may  trust  to 
proverbs,  the  farmer's  outlook  is  black  enough.  For  what  say  the 
wise  saws  ? 

The  hind  had  as  soon  see  his  wife  on  her  bier 

As  on  Candlemas  Day  that  the  sun  should  shine  clear ; 

which  suggests  that  the  average  hind  is,  or  used  to  be,  deeply 
interested  in  agriculture  and  not  much  in  his  wife.  The  shepherd, 
indeed,  is,  or  was,  still  more  decided  on  the  point,  for  of  him  it  is 

said : 

If  Candlemas  day  be  bright  and  clear, 

The  shepherd  had  rather  see  his  wife  on  her  bier. 

It  is  a  wise  proverb  that  urges. 

Lock  in  the  barn  on  Candlemas  Day 
Half  your  corn  and  half  of  your  hay, 

calling  attention  as  it  does  to  the  fact  that  in  this  climate  the 
2nd  of  February  is  often  for  all  practical  purposes  mid- winter. 
Here  is  another  saying  : 

If  Candlemas  Day  be  fair  and  bright, 
Winter  will  have  another  flight ; 
But  if  it  be  dark  with  clouds  and  rain, 
Winter  is  gone  and  will  not  come  again. 


I02  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

And  another  : 

As  far  as  the  sun  shines  in  on  Candlemas  Day, 
So  far  the  snow  will  blow  in  afore  May. 

Two  more,  and  good-bye  to  Candlemas ; 

Where  the  wind  is  on  Candlemas  Day, 
There  it  will  stick  till  the  end  of  May. 

Si  sol  splendescat  Maria  purificante, 

Major  erit  glacies  post  festum  quam  fuit  ante. 

Of  all  of  which  proverbs  we  shall  learn  the  truth  or  falsity  if  we 
live  long  enough  to  prove  them. 

To-day  the  weather  is  squally,  with  cold  rain  and  fine  intervals. 
We  began  to  thrash  this  morning,  but  were  obliged  to  give  up 
about  eleven  o'clock.  It  is  very  curious  to  observe  how  absolutely 
indifferent  the  lambs  seem  to  cold.  One  would  think  that  the 
icy  blasts  of  wind  blowing  on  their  wet  skins  would  freeze  them 
through,  but  they  appear  to  mind  these  very  little.  Sheep  are 
naturally  cold-loving  animals.  Occasionally  they  shiver  when 
penned  up  wet  in  a  high  wind,  but  it  is  heat  that  really  makes 
them  miserable,  and  flies,  which  are  worse  to  them  even  than  the 
heat.  Were  they  left  untended  in  many  parts  of  the  country, 
however  plentiful  and  good  their  food,  I  believe  that  sheep  would 
soon  die  out,  if  only  from  this  plague,  against  which  they  seem 
quite  unable  to  protect  themselves.  I  suppose  that  in  places 
where  their  race  thrives  naturally,  as  on  the  mountains  of  Scotland 
and  Wales,  the  flies  are  much  fewer,  perhaps  owing  to  the  con- 
stant movement  of  winds  at  those  altitudes. 

It  may  be  asked  how  sheep  manage  in  the  East,  where  flies 
are  many,  and  I  can  only  answer  that  I  do  not  know,  for  although 
I  think  that  I  have  seen  them  in  Egypt  and  Cyprus,  I  neglected 
to  make  inquiries.  Nor  did  I  ever  keep  any  sheep  when 
farming  in  South  Africa,  so  am  ignorant  of  their  treatment  in 
that  country ;  but  I  am  sure  that  if  they  are  as  susceptible  to 
the  fly  pest  there  as  here,  great  numbers  must  die  unless  they  are 
very   strictly  looked  after.     Last  year,  notwithstanding  constant 


FEBRUARY  103 

dressing,  I  nearly  lost  two  ewes  out  of  my  small  flock  from  this 
cause.  One  got  a  sore  upon  her  neck,  which  it  was  vain  to 
bandage,  for  so  fast  as  the  cloths  were  tied  on  the  foolish  thing 
tore  them  off  with  her  sharp  hoofs,  with  the  result  that  she  went 
about  all  the  summer  tormented  by  black  lumps  of  flies  which 
feasted  on  her  wounds.  Another  suffered  from  an  abscess 
behind,  produced  by  flies,  the  pain  of  which  seemed  to  drive  the 
poor  creature  almost  mad.  I  remember  that  on  one  occasion  she 
left  the  flock  and  returned  to  the  back  lawn  from  nearly  a  mile 
away,  breaking  through  the  fences  in  order  to  get  there.  Here 
I  found  her  lying  panting  on  her  side.  When  disturbed,  she 
would  stagger  to  her  feet,  run  a  hundred  yards  or  so  like  a 
demented  thing,  and  then  lie  down  again.  I  thought  that  she  must 
die,  but  with  care  she  recovered,  and,  indeed,  has  recently  lambed. 
In  the  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham,  where  I  found  the 
men  opening  the  water-furrows  on  field  No.  5,  which  they  had 
drilled  with  barley  yesterday,  the  seed  going  in  fairly  well.  To- 
day nothing  has  been  drilled,  as  most  of  the  six  acres  to  be  sown 
has  proved  intractable.  Three  times  did  the  horses  drag  the  land 
with  the  heavy  harrows,  until  they  were  quite  exhausted,  indeed  ; 
but  the  chief  result  seemed  to  be  that  they  rolled  over  the  tough 
clods  instead  of  breaking  them.  As  it  chanced,  however,  about 
an  acre  and  a  half  of  this  field  was  got  up  before  Christmas  and 
received  the  benefit  of  the  only  frosts  that  have  fallen  this 
season.  The  results  serve  to  show  how  necessary  is  the  action  of 
frost  to  the  securing  of  a  good  tilth  on  land  of  this  character,  for 
whereas  there  was  plenty  of  mould  on  the  acre  and  a  half,  the 
remainder  of  the  piece  which  had  been  wetted  by  the  showers  was 
strewn  with  unbreakable  lumps  of  clay.  This  acre  and  a  half 
Moore  began  to  drill  late  in  the  evening,  just  as  I  was  starting 
home.  The  rest  I  told  him  to  leave  for  the  present  and  to  return 
the  drill  to  Ditchingham  early  to-morrow. 

February  4. — To-day  is  much  colder,  with  occasional  storms 
of  snow  and  hail  driven  by  a  high  nor'-west  wmd.     As  I  write,  for 


104  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

the  first  time  during  the  present  winter  the  lawn  is  white,  although 
the  weather  is  not  bad  enough  to  stop  the  thrashing.  The 
steamer  began  to  work  at  the  All  Hallows  Farm  on  the  little 
stack  of  barley  from  No.  38,  the  five-and-a-half-acre  piece  of  glebe 
land.  Now  it  is  that  we  see  what  a  drought,  such  as  we  experienced 
last  year,  means  upon  these  light  lands,  for  this  barley  is  not 
yielding  more  than  four  coomb  an  acre.  Next  the  wheat  from 
the  All  Hallows  six-acre,  No.  29,  was  dealt  with.  This  is  a  good 
piece  of  stiffish  land,  so  here  the  tale  was  different.  Notwith- 
standing that  the  corn  suffered  a  great  deal  from  the  attacks  of 
sparrows,  it  cast  about  ten  coomb  an  acre — a  result  which  in  so 
poor  a  wheat  year  may  be  considered  satisfactory.  When  these 
stacks  were  finished  the  machine  moved  to  the  Home  Farm 
(smashing  a  gate  in  the  process)  and  began  to  thrash  the  oats  and 
beans  from  the  nine-acre  pit  field,  No.  23.  These  are  pedigree 
black  oats,  which  we  are  now  trying  for  the  first  time.  The 
return  seems  to  be  good  considering  the  year,  about  sixteen 
coomb  an  acre,  I  think.  The  beans  also  are  thrashing  out  well, 
about  eleven  coomb  to  the  acre. 

It  is  curious  to  look  at  the  steamer  and  listen  to  its  hungry  swell- 
ing hum  as  it  devours  sheaf  after  sheaf  of  corn,  and  to  compare  it 
with  the  style  of  thrashing  that  I  can  remember  when  I  was  a 
boy.  Now  the  straw  is  tossed  automatically  to  the  elevator,  or  to 
the  pitchforks  of  those  who  are  stacking  it ;  the  husk  is  shaken 
out  and  rejected,  grit  and  stones  are  caught  and  cast  away,  and 
the  pure  grain  is  sorted  into  three  or  four  classes  in  accordance 
with  the  size  and  quality  of  the  kernels,  all  by  the  ingenious 
mechanism  of  a  not  very  complicated  machine.  In  the  old  days 
the  thrashing  was  done  by  an  instrument  like  a  large  windlass, 
with  four  or  six  horses  attached  to  the  spokes  and  a  man  seated 
on  a  little  stool  in  the  centre  armed  with  a  long  whip  to  keep 
them  up  to  their  work  as  they  walked  round  and  round.  The 
actual  machinery  that  did  the  thrashing  was  hidden  inside  a  barn, 
and  I  cannot  recall  sufficient  of  its  details  to  describe  it.  I  do, 
however,  remember  seeing  the  flail  used  from  time  to  time,  the  last 


FEBRUARY  105 

occasion  being  not  more  than  fifteen  years  ago.  From  a  flail  to 
a  modern  steam-thrasher  is  a  long  stride,  and  the  time  and 
labour  saved  by  the  latter  are  almost  incalculable.  Yet  I  believe 
that  farming  paid  better  in  the  days  of  flails  and  reaping  hooks 
than  it  does  now  in  those  of  steamers  and  self-binders. 

In  walking  round  the  farm  this  afternoon  I  noticed  that  the 
rooks  are  playing  havoc  on  the  three  acres  of  mixed  grain  which 
we  drilled  a  few  days  ago  for  sheep  food  on  No.  24.  They  are 
congregated  there  literally  by  scores,  and  if  you  shout  at  them  to 
frighten  them  away,  they  satisfy  themselves  by  retiring  to  some 
trees  near  at  hand  and  awaiting  your  departure  to  renew  their 
operations.  The  beans  attract  them  most,  and  their  method  of 
reducing  these  into  possession  is  to  walk  down  the  lines  of  the 
drill  until  (as  I  suppose)  they  smell  a  bean  underneath.  Then 
they  bore  down  with  their  strong  beaks  and  extract  it,  leaving  a 
neat  little  hole  to  show  that  they  have  been  there.  Maize  they  love 
even  better  than  beans ;  indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  keep  them  off"  a 
field  sown  with  that  crop.  Hood  promises  to  set  up  some  mawkins 
to  fright  them,  but  the  mawkin  nowadays  is  a  poor  creature  com- 
pared with  what  he  used  to  be,  and  it  is  a  wonder  that  any 
experienced  rook  consents  to  be  scared  by  him.  Thirty  years  or 
so  ago  he  was  really  a  work  of  art,  with  a  hat,  a  coat,  a  stick,  and 
sometimes  a  painted  face,  ferocious  enough  to  frighten  a  little  boy 
in  the  twilight,  let  alone  a  bird.  Now  a  rag  or  two  and  a  jumble- 
sale  cloth  cap  are  considered  suflicient,  backed  up  generally  by 
the  argument,  which  may  prove  more  effective,  of  a  dead  rook  tied 
up  by  the  leg  to  a  stick. 

In  the  course  of  my  walk  I  came  across  sheep's-parsley  in 
bloom  and,  in  sheltered  places,  honeysuckle  and  the  arum-like 
plants  which  we  call  '  lords  and  ladies  '  in  full  leaf. 

February  6. — Yesterday  we  had  heavy  snowstorms  with  intervals 
of  sunshine,  which  left  the  ground  quite  deep  in  thawing  snow. 
The  ox  of  which  I  have  already  spoken  has  turned  sick  again,  so, 
as  he  is  a  big  brute,  with  a  good  deal  of  meat  on  his  bones,  Hood 


io6  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

came  to  the  conclusion,  and  I  agreed  with  him,  that  rather  than 
run  any  further  risk  we  had  better  sell  him  for  whatever  he  would 
fetch.  Accordingly  the  butcher  from  Bungay  was  sent  for,  and 
after  some  bargaining  offered  12/.  for  him  as  he  stood,  that  is  i/. 
less  than  he  cost  some  months  ago.  So  that  ox  went  away,  taking 
his  inefficient  third  stomach  with  him,  if  indeed  it  is  his  third 
stomach  that  is  to  blame,  which  I  doubt ;  and  very  glad  we  were  to 
see  the  last  of  him.  Before  he  departed  Mr.  Little  made  a  drawing 
of  him  as  he  stood  in  a  place  by  himself,  a  m  ^lancholy  and  rather 
dangerous-looking  object,  gloomy-eyed  and  hump-backed,  from 
time  to  time  producing  a  strange  grating  noise  by  grinding  his 
teeth  together.  My  own  belief  is  that  the  animal  has  some 
obstruction  fixed  in  his  liver,  perhaps  a  bit  of  stick  or  glass  which 
he  has  picked  up  in  his  travels  from  market  to  market.  However, 
we  shall  hear  all  about  it  in  a  day  or  two. 

In  the  afternoon,  having  studied  the  theory  of  ploughing,  Mr. 
Little  and  I  proceeded  to  put  it  into  practice  on  All  Hallows  six- 
acres.  No.  29,  which  was  being  thwarted  for  root.  Ploughing,  I  can 
assure  the  reader,  is  one  of  those  things  that  look  a  great  deal  easier 
than  they  are,  like  the  writing  of  romances,  which  is  supposed  by 
the  uninstructed  to  be  a  facile  art.  The  observer,  standing  at  a  gate 
to  watch  a  man  with  a  pair  of  horses  strolling  up  and  down  a  field 
for  hours  on  end,  if  inexperienced,  is  apt  to  conclude  that  beyond 
the  physical  endurance  involved  the  difficulties  are  small.  Let  him 
take  the  pair  of  horses,  however,  and  follow  this  pastoral  pursuit 
for,  say,  forty  minutes,  and  he  will  come  away  with  a  greatly 
increased  respect  for  Mr,  Hodge. 

To  begin  with,  the  setting  out  of  a  field  to  plough  in  accordance 
with  the  kind  of  work  selected  as  suitable  to  the  purpose  for  which 
it  is  being  cultivated,  is  by  no  means  an  easy  matter.  (If  anyone 
doubts  this  statement,  let  him  consult  Stephens's  diagrams,  and  try 
to  work  them  out.)  Nor  is  it  easy  to  keep  a  perfectly  straight 
line,  or,  by  pressing  too  much  or  too  little  on  the  plough  handles, 
not  to  cause  undesirable  variations  of  depth  in  the  furrow.  But 
all  this  is  simplicity  itself  compared  to  what  happens  when  you 


FEBRUARY  107 

reach  the  end  of  the  field  and  are  called  upon  to  turn  round.  Even 
if  you  have  mastered  the  mystic  word,  or  rather  noise— it  sounds 
like  wo-is-sh  Dlun  (Dlun  represents  the  name  of  the  mare,  which 
afterwards  you  ascertain  to  be  '  Darling ') — the  Open  Sesame,  at  the 
sound  of  which,  and  at  nothing  else,  the  horses  will  turn  at  all  — 
the  probability  is  that  you  bring  them  about  too  sharply,  throwing 
the  plough  on  to  its  side  and  yourself  into  the  ditch.  Or  perhaps 
you  wheel  them  round  too  widely,  with  the  result  that  you  find 
yourself  a  yard  or  two  beyond  the  spot  where  you  purposed  to 
begin  the  new  furrow,  vaguely  wondering  how  you  are  going  to  drag 
a  heavy  plough  and  two  very  solid  horses  back  into  position. 

The  end  of  it  is  that,  having  in  vain  endeavoured  to  take  the 
half- sarcastic  counsel  offered  to  you  by  Mr.  Hodge,  who  at  last  feels 
himself  your  superior,  as,  if  all  the  truth  were  known,  very  likely 
he  is  in  more  than  ploughing,  you  wipe  your  perspiring  brow  and 
present  him  with  the  handles  and  a  shilling.  These  things,  and 
others,  I  observed  happening  to  my  companion  yesterday  afternoon. 
For  my  own  part,  whether  by  good  luck  or  good  management 
modesty  forbids  me  to  say,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  contre- 
temps unworthy  of  notice,  I  got  on  exceedingly  well. 

The  intelligence  evinced  by  farm  horses  at  ploughing,  and 
indeed  all  other  work — if  only  you  are  master  of  the  language 
which  they  understand — always  strikes  me  as  astonishing.  The 
carriage  and  riding  horse  is  generally  very  much  of  a  fool  and 
misbehaves  himself,  or  gets  frightened,  or  runs  away  upon  most 
convenient  occasions.  How  different  it  is  with  his  humble  farm 
yard  cousin,  who,  through  heat  or  cold,  sun  or  snow,  plods  on 
hour  after  hour  at  his  appointed  task,  never  stepping  aside  or 
drawing  a  false  line,  always  obedient  to  the  voice  of  his  driver, 
and,  provided  he  is  fairly  fed  and  rested,  always  ready  for  his 
work  the  long  year  through.  I  often  wonder  whether,  taken  as 
a  class,  the  common  plough  horse  is  really  more  intelligent  than 
the  aristocrat  of  the  stable,  or  whether  it  is  simply  that  the  latter 
has,  as  a  rule,  so  little  to  do  and  so  much  to  eat  that  he  seldom 
comes  to  understand  the  responsibilities  of  life.     On  the  whole, 


io8  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

however,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  countless  generations  of 
semi-intelligent  labour,  that  is,  labour  in  which  the  animal  takes 
what  seems  to  be  a  thinking  part,  have  really  given  it  more  brain 
and  power  of  reflection  than  belong  to  the  class  of  horses  used 
only  occasionally,  and,  for  the  most  part,  for  the  purposes  of 
pleasure. 

To-day,  Sunday,  there  were  showers  of  snow  and  sleet  in  the 
morning,  though  after  church  the  sun  came  out.  In  the  afternoon 
it  was  dull  again,  with  a  strong  west  wind ;  but  the  moon-rise  to-night 
was  one  of  the  most  lovely  that  I  have  seen  for  a  long  time.  In 
front  of  where  I  stood,  on  the  top  of  Hollow  Hill,  lay  a  stretch  of 
bare  plough,  bordered  by  a  little  belt  of  plantation.  Above  these 
trees  the  moon,  full,  bright,  and  round,  appeared  in  a  perfectly 
clear  sky,  turning  the  tree-tops  and  the  cold  purple  plough  silver 
with  her  light. 

February  lo. — For  the  last  three  days  all  the  available  carts 
have  been  at  work  carting  litter  out  of  the  yards.  The  weather 
has  been  bright  and  colder,  with  slight  frosts  at  night,  which  have 
done  much  good.  The  manure,  I  may  explain,  is  hauled  on  to  a 
heap  in  the  field  for  which  it  is  intended,  where  it  heats.  After 
about  fourteen  days  it  can  be  turned  so  that  the  bottom  of  the 
heap  becomes  the  top,  and  to  do  this  properly  is  part  of  the 
mystery  of  farming.  Then  it  heats  again,  after  which,  shortened 
and  sweetened,  it  is  fit  to  go  upon  the  earth.  This  heating  kills 
all  seeds  of  docks  or  other  rubbish  that  may  have  been  brought 
in  with  the  hay  or  straw ;  also  it  breaks  up  and  decomposes  the 
fibre  of  the  straw,  so  that  the  mixture  becomes  more  readily  in- 
corporated with  the  soil.  Summer  muck,  however,  being  much 
shorter  owing  to  its  containing  less  straw,  is  often  carted  straight 
on  to  the  land  without  being  '  haled '  or  heaped.  The  manure 
this  year  should  be  of  good  quality,  as  so  little  rain  has  fallen  to 
wash  the  yards  and  spoil  it.  Before  another  winter  comes  round 
I  hope  to  have  most  of  it  safe  under  cover  of  iron-roofed  sheds. 

To-day  is  Bungay  market,  and  Hood  sold  about  fifty-six  coomb 


FEBRUARY  109 

of  wheat  grown  on  the  All  Hallows  land  at  i8j-.  3<f.  the  coomb  of 
18  stone,  or  36^.  dd.  the  quarter.  This  is  sixpence  less  than  he 
was  offered  last  week ;  but  the  markets  for  corn  are  so  dreadfully 
uncertain,  and  so  much  at  the  mercy  of  American  *  corners  '  and 
speculators  in  *  futures,'  that  it  seems  best  to  take  it,  as,  for  aught 
we  know,  by  next  sale  day  wheat  may  be  down  two  or  three 
shillings  a  quarter.  Of  course,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  up, 
especially  as  it  is  said  that  there  is  really  a  shortage  in  the  world's 
supply.     But  this  it  is  not  safe  to  count  on. 

February  11. — To-day  is  dull  and  mild,  with  a  very  high 
glass.  I  hear  that  the  sick  ox,  which  was  sold  to  the  butcher, 
after  its  decease  was  found  to  be  suffering,  not  from  its  third 
stomach,  as  the  veterinary  thought,  nor  from  liver,  as  I  thought,  but 
from  its  brain,  on  which  it  had  an  abscess.  When  it  was  being 
driven  away,  the  animal  suddenly  rolled  over,  though  afterwards  it 
picked  itself  up,  and  managed  to  get  along  in  a  lop-sided  fashion. 
On  dissection,  the  abscess  was  found  to  have  burst  recently, 
probably  when  it  fell.  No  doubt  it  was  caused  in  the  first  instance 
by  a  heavy  blow  over  the  eye.  This  may  have  been  received  on 
board  ship,  or  more  probably  it  was  inflicted  by  a  drover's  stick. 
The  poor  creature  must  have  suffered  greatly  ;  indeed,  it  is 
wonderful  that  it  did  not  either  die  or  go  mad.  Here  is  another 
caution  against  buying  these  store  cattle,  of  which  it  is  impossible 
to  know  the  past  history. 

This  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham,  where  I  found  the 
draining  nearly  finished,  and  Moore  in  sad  straits  to  find  bushes 
for  the  end  of  it.  He  has  begun  to  plough  this  field.  No.  18, 
that  is  to  be  planted  with  swedes  and  kohl  rabi.  First  of  all  he 
runs  the  plough  along  the  side  of  each  drain,  turning  a  spit  of 
soil  on  to  the  loose  lumps  of  earth  with  which  it  is  roughly  filled 
in.  Then  he  sets  to  work  in  the  ordinary  fashion  ;  although  a 
newly  drained  field  never  looks  quite  neat  after  the  first  ploughing, 
owing  to  the  clods  of  bottom  clay  with  which  it  is  sprinkled,  the 
bits  of  stick  and  other  debris,  and  the  parti-coloured  lines  that 


no  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

show  where  the  trenches  have  been  cut.  The  land  at  Bedingham 
Looked  drier  to-day  than  I  ever  remember  seeing  it  at  this  time  of 
year. 

February  19. — There  has  been  little  to  record  during  the 
past  week.  The  weather  has  been  dull  with  a  good  deal  of  wind, 
which  rose  to  a  strong  westerly  gale  on  the  i6th,  and  on  the  whole 
mild.  We  have  been  carting  a  quantity  of  manure  from  the 
various  yards,  also  delivering  the  wheat  which  was  sold  upon 
the  12  th  after  it  had  been  cleaned,  or  dressed  as  we  call  it,  in 
the  winnowing  machine.  On  the  17th  we  ploughed  the  Ape 
field.  No.  27  (I  wonder  how  it  got  that  name;  perhaps  because  a 
monkey  escaped  on  it  in  some  past  age).  This  field  is  to  be  sown 
with  barley,  but  as  the  soil  has  gone  down  tight,  it  was  thought 
advisable  to  give  it  a  second  ploughing.  The  three  ploughs  finished 
it  to-day  and  began  re-ploughing  No.  25,  opposite,  also  for  barley. 

A  day  or  two  ago  the  principal  hotel  in  Bungay,  called  the 
King's  Head,  together  with  another  inn  in  Bridge  Street,  was 
put  up  for  public  auction.  I  think  that  they  are  the  last 
'  free '  houses  in  the  town  ;  that  is,  houses  the  occupiers  of  which 
are  entitled  to  sell  any  beer  that  they  or  their  customers  may 
prefer.  All  the  other  houses,  and  their  name  is  legion,  are  *  tied ' 
houses  ;  in  other  words,  they  have  been  purchased  by  various  firms 
of  brewers,  and  are  forced  to  sell  the  beer  made  by  their  owner 
exclusively,  whether  it  be  good,  bad,  or  indifferent.^  To  my  mind, 
speaking  as  the  chairman  of  a  bench  of  magistrates,  who  has  now 
had  a  good  many  years  of  experience  in  matters  connected  with  the 
licensing  of  public  houses,  this  '  tied '  house  system  is  a  crying 
evil.  In  practice  it  constitutes  a  monopoly  of  the  worst  sort.  The 
license  granted  by  the  magistrates  is  nothing  more  or  less  than 

'  In  some  parts  of  England,  I  am  told,  the  brewers  oblige  their  nominees 
in  tied  houses  to  purchase  through  them  groceries  and  other  goods  besides 
the  drink  they  retail.  This  is  an  arrangement  from  which  the  firm  supplying 
the  articles  sucks  no  small  advantage,  but  I  have  not  heard  that  it  is  in  force 
in  these  counties. 


FEBRUARY  m 

an  endowment,  which,  whatever  may  be  the  letter  of  the  law, 
in  fact,  as  opposed  to  theory,  the  bench  has  little  power  to  refuse. 
Indeed,  any  such  arbitrary  act  would  be  denounced  and  agitated 
against  as  an  attempt  to  offer  violence  to  that  god  of  the  English, 
the  Rights  of  Property,  unless  it  chanced  that  the  management 
of  the  house  had  been  reported  upon  adversely  by  the  police  and 
the  license  endorsed  by  the  local  bench. 

When  this  happens — and  it  does  not  often  happen,  since  for 
their  own  sakes  the  brewers  are  very  careful  whom  they  put  in 
— it  is  the  occupier  who  is  dismissed ;  the  house  abides.  On  such 
occasions  the  brewer's  agent  appears,  apologises  for  the  trouble, 
and  announces  that  the  tenant  has  received  notice  or  been  got 
rid  of,  whereon  the  bench  has  practically  no  option  but  to  admit 
any  new  nominee  who  can  produce  decent  testimonials.  The 
great  value  of  such  an  endowment,  even  in  the  case  of  a  quiet 
country  town  like  Bungay,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  not  many 
years  ago  the  local  branch  of  the  Oddfellows  purchased  the  King's 
Head  for  about  i,8oo/.,  whereas  at  the  recent  auction  it  was  sold 
for  over  6; 500/.,  although  I  believe  that  the  lease  of  the  present 
tenant  of  the  inn  has  some  years  to  run,  during  which  time  he 
cannot  be  forced  to  sell  any  particular  brand  of  beer  or  spirits. 

I  confess  I  am  unable  to  understand  the  advantages  of  this 
system,  that  enables  people  with  long  purses  to  force  the  public 
to  buy  any  yellow-coloured  liquor  which  they  choose  to  honour 
with  the  name  of  beer,  although,  in  truth,  in  some  instances  it  is, 
I  believe,  scarcely  more  than  a  chemical  compound  manufactured 
from  I  know  not  what.  The  only  explanation  is  that,  being  the 
wealthiest  men  and  a  magnificently  organised  power  in  this 
land,  the  brewers  are  careful  to  stop  any  legislation  which  can 
possibly  cut  into  their  great  profits. 

As  a  further  safeguard,  most  of  them  have  made  their  busi- 
i.^sses  into  public  companies,  in  which  they  retain  the  controlling 
interest,  thereby  converting  tens  of  thousands  of  small  share- 
holders into  their  partners  and  enthusiastic  supporters.  How  vast 
and  dangerous  is  their  strength  is  well  shown  by  the  disaster  that 


112  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

overtook  the  Liberal  party  when  it  made  a  platform  plank  of  Local 
Option.  Looking  at  this  scheme  from  a  practical  and  not  a  politi- 
cal point  of  view,  I  think,  however,  that  it  deserved  to  fail,  because, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  it  would  foster  the  very  thing  which  I  consider 
such  an  evil — the  indirect  endowment  of  public-houses.  It  is 
not  to  be  expected  that  any  town  in  England  would  vote  for  the 
closing  of  all  drinking  places  within  its  limits,  as  sometimes 
happens  in  America,  nor  will  most  people  consider  it  desirable  that 
this  should  be  done.  Therefore  it  is  probable  that  what  might 
happen  is  that  a  certain  proportion  of  the  houses  would  be 
penalised  by  a  popular  vote,  while  the  value  of  others  which 
escaped  would  be  enormously  enhanced.  Nobody  can  be  more 
convinced  than  I  am  that  there  are  far  too  many  public-houses ; 
in  Bungay,  for  instance — I  think  that  I  once  reckoned  in  the 
course  of  a  disputed  licensing  case — there  is  a  liquor  shop  of  one 
kind  or  another  for  every  loo  of  the  total  population.  Yet  as  the 
people  love  to  have  it  so,  it  seems  impossible  to  escape  the  evil. 
Now,  to  make  matters  worse,  the  houses,  or  rather  the  licenses, 
have  been  bought  up  by  the  brewers  and  turned  into  a  close 
monopoly. 

Under  these  circumstances,  I  suggest  that  as  the  first  appears 
to  be  beyond  remedy,  the  second  ill,  at  any  rate,  might  be  com- 
bated by  empowering  the  magistrates  to  grant  a  license  to  sell 
liquors  under  strict  police  supervision  to  any  and  every  respectable 
man  who  chooses  to  apply  for  it.  The  effect  of  this  would 
be  that  the  brewers  could  not  buy  up  an  unlimited  number  of 
licenses  ;  that  the  holders  of  licenses  would  be  at  liberty  to  supply 
sound  liquor,  which  in  some  instances,  at  any  rate,  is  not  now 
the  case,  and  that,  as  I  believe,  for  the  most  part,  the  number  of 
liquor  shops  would  not,  in  fact,  be  increased,  since  in  the  majority 
of  towns  and  villages  there  are  already  as  many  as  can  possibly 
earn  a  livelihood. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  many  objections  can  be  urged  against 
such  a  plan,  but  at  least  this  may  be  said  in  its  favour,  that  it 
would  tend  to  foster  the  sale  of  honest  beer  made  from  malt  and 


FEBRUARY  113 

hops.*  People  who  study  the  subject  have  told  me  that  almost 
as  much  drunkenness  is  occasioned  by  the  deleterious  quality  as 
by  the  amount  of  drink  consumed.  At  least,  as  it  is  difficult  to 
imagine  a  worse  state  of  affairs  than  that  which  exists  at  present, 
any  reasonable  remedy  is  worthy  of  consideration,  even  if  it  takes 
the  shape  of  free  trade  in  beer  or  of  State  control  of  its  manu- 
facture and  distribution.  At  this  contemplative  stage,  however, 
the  matter  is  likely  to  rest,  for  the  brewers  have  the  British 
public  by  the  throat,  and,  while  their  money  commands  so  vast 
an  influence,  after  the  experience  of  the  Liberals  at  the  last 
election,  no  Government  is  likely  to  enter  on  the  crusade  of  forcing 
them  to  loose  their  grip. 

I  am  very  glad  to  hear  from  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  that  it  is  he 
who  has  purchased  the  King's  Head,  not  that  his  Grace  is  con- 
nected with  brewing  or  desires  to  turn  that  ancient  hostelry  into 
a  tied  house,  but  for  quite  another  reason.  At  the  back  of  the 
King's  Head,  and  standing  in  its  grounds,  are  the  ruins  of  Bungay 
Castle,  of  which  I  have  spoken  in  tlie  first  chapter  of  this  book- 
once  the  home  of  the  Bigods,  the  predecessors  of  the  Dukes  of 
Norfolk.  These  ruins  a  good  many  years  ago  were,  I  believe, 
sold  by  the  present  Duke,  who  had  never  seen  them,  under  some 
misapprehension  as  to  their  nature  and  extent.  After  various 
vicissitudes  they  were  purchased  by  the  Oddfellows  for,  I  think, 

'  Since  writing  this  passage  I  have  been  informed  that  a  scheme  of  a  similar 
nature  has  been  tried  in  Liverpool  and  failed.  Even  if  this  be  so,  it  does  not 
follow  that  regulations  which  have  proved  unsuitable  to  the  needs  of  a  huge  city 
might  not  answer  well  in  country  towns  and  villages,  where  the  circumstances 
are  totally  different. 

(Owing  to  the  publication  of  the  above  note  in  the  course  of  the  appearance 
of  this  work  in  serial  form  I  have  received  a  considerable  amount  of  corre- 
spondence from  magistrates  and  other  gentlemen  connected  with  Liverpool, 
protesting  that  the  famous  licensing  system  was  by  no  means  a  failure. 

I  must  say  that  a  study  of  the  pamphlets  and  letters  that  have  been  for- 
warded to  me  leads  me  to  much  the  same  conclusion,  and  I  think  it  a  matter 
for  great  regret  that  experiments  of  this  character  have  not  been  given  a  fuller 
and  a  fairer  trial.     ^/rzV  1899.     H.  R.  H.) 


114  A   FARMER'S   YEAR 

200/.,  and  turned  into  the  pleasure  grounds  of  the  inn.  Now 
the  Duke  has  had  to  give  over  6,000/.  to  recover  the  home  of 
his  ancestors,  but  doubtless  he  will  be  able  to  recoup  himself 
for  the  m,ost  of  this  outlay  by  re-selling  the  hotel.  Indeed, 
should  the  brewers'  mania  for  the  acquisition  of  tied  houses 
continue,  I  dare  say  that  were  he  to  keep  the  property  in  hand 
for  a  year  or  two  he  might  make  a  handsome  profit  on  the 
transaction. 

February  21. — Winter  has  come  at  last,  for  the  thermometer 
shows  that  there  w^ere  ten  degrees  of  frost  during  the  night.  One 
of  my  best  cows,  Miss  Pegotty  by  name,  calved  last  night,  or 
rather  tried  to  calve,  with  the  result  that  when  Hood  went  into 
the  cowhouse  this  morning  he  found  the  calf  dead  and  the  cow 
not  far  off  it.  I  think  that  the  calf  was  the  largest  which  I  ever 
saw,  and  that  the  trouble  was  undoubtedly  occasioned  by  nobody 
being  with  the  cow  This  sounds  like  carelessness,  but  in  fact  it 
is  not  always  so.  All  mammals  seem  to  prefer  to  produce  their 
young  at  night,  although  in  the  case  of  cattle  this  rule  has  many 
exceptions.  Therefore,  when  a  cow  is  overdue,  and  shows  the 
usual  signs  of  calving,  the  cowkeeper  has  sometimes  to  sit  up 
night  by  night  to  watch  her,  until  at  last  he  is  almost  worn  out. 
In  the  present  case,  for  instance,  I  believe  that  Miss  Pegotty  has 
been  expected  to  calve  for  the  last  fortnight,  and  that  Hood  and 
his  brother  have  watched  her  during  all  that  time.  Last  night, 
however,  the  signs  of  immediate  calving  vanished,  and  Hood,  on 
whom  the  watching  had  devolved  for  several  nights,  thought  that 
he  was  quite  safe  in  taking  a  rest,  with  the  result  stated  above. 

It  will  be  a  terrible  business  if  we  lose  Miss  Pegotty  as  well  as 
her  calf,  for  she  is  one  of  our  most  prolific  and  reliable  cows.  She 
has  been  dosed  with  a  pint  of  whisky  in  gruel,  but  is  quite  unable 
to  get  on  to  her  legs.  The  farrier  has  come  to  visit  her,  but  does 
not  recommend  that  she  should  be  slung,  as  he  thinks  that  the 
pressure  of  the  slings  might  upset  her  inside,  which  indeed  occurred 
to  me  as  probable.     I  may  explain  that  the  slinging  was  suggested 


FEBRUARY  115 

because  it  is  feared  that  if  she  lies  much  longer  she  will  get  set 
fast  with  stiffness,  and  never  find  her  feet  again. 

As  I  returned  from  the  farmyard  after  visiting  Miss  Pegotty,  I 
noticed  one  of  the  cocks  in  a  dreadful  condition.  Its  comb  was 
nearly  torn  off,  it  seemed  to  be  almost  blind,  and  its  neck  ran 
red  with  blood.  On  inquiring  the  cause  I  discovered  that  not 
war  with  its  own  species  was  to  blame  for  these  gory  wounds,  but 
rather  the  malevolent  behaviour  of  a  certain  turkey  hen.  This  hen, 
for  some  reason  best  known  to  itself,  has  a  grudge  against  that 
particular  cock,  and  attacks  it  upon  every  occasion.  The  cock 
stands  up  to  it  as  well  as  he  can,  but  weight  will  tell,  and  that  of 
this  morning  went  near  to  proving  his  last  fray.  Indeed,  I  doubt 
whether  he  would  survive  another.  Turkeys,  so  far  as  my  observa- 
tion goes,  are  singularly  cruel  and  overbearing  in  their  habits.  Not 
long  ago,  in  the  little  meadow  on  the  All  Hallows  Farm,  I  found  a 
cock  lying  on  the  ground,  still  alive,  but  absolutely  pulled  to  pieces. 
Walking  round  him,  and  now  and  again  inflicting  a  scientific  and 
meditative  peck  upon  some  open  wound,  was  the  old  gobbler, 
who  no  doubt  had  previously  reduced  him  to  this  sad  condition. 

Decidedly  to-day  was  unlucky  for  fowls,  for  the  two  terrier 
dogs,  Di  and  Dan,  hunted  and  slew  one  of  them  in  the  shrubbery. 
They  were  caught  in  the  act  and  received  their  just  reward.  After- 
wards the  hen,  a  very  large  one,  was  lashed  to  the  younger  dog, 
Dan,  its  legs  being  bound  about  his  neck,  and  its  head  fastened 
under  his  stomach.  For  a  while  the  dog  sat  looking  the  picture  of 
dejection,  his  sharp  nose  poking  out  between  its  tail  feathers ;  but 
I  think  his  grief  arose  from  the  sense  that  he  was  an  object  of 
ridicule  rather  than  from  remorse  for  his  crime.  At  any  rate,  as 
he  could  not  gnaw  the  corpse  off,  or  even  walk  away  with  it,  after 
a  while  he  turned  it  into  a  mattress,  and  spent  the  rest  of  the 
afternoon  slumbering  on  the  top  of  it,  to  all  appearance  utterly 
undisturbed  in  conscience.  (Note. — No  more  dead  hens  have 
been  found,  but  since  then  Dan  has  killed  a  duck.) 

February  22. — Last  night  there  were  twelve  degrees  of  frost, 

I  2 


ii6  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

but  the  ground  remains  soft  enough  to  allow  of  one  plough  work- 
ing on  some  light  land,  the  rest  of  the  horses  being  employed  in 
carting  manure.  The  cow,  Miss  Pegotty,  is  still  unable  to  find  the 
use  of  her  hind  legs,  but  in  some  extraordinary  and  unexplained 
way  she  has  dragged  and  rolled  herself  the  length  of  the  cow-house, 
and  through  the  open  door  into  the  hovel.  Here  she  lies  with 
sacks  over  her,  shivering  violently  from  time  to  time,  and  stretch- 
ing out  her  head  upon  the  straw  in  rather  an  alarming  fashion. 
Her  eyes,  however,  seem  bright  and  healthy,  also  she  can  eat. 
Mustard  is  being  rubbed  upon  her  loins  with  the  object  of 
stimulating  the  muscles. 

It  is  a  curious  day  for  the  end  of  February  :  very  clear,  cold, 
and  still,  the  sky  heavy  as  though  with  snow,  except  when  the  sun 
breaks  out,  as  it  does  from  time  to  time.  Standing  at  the  gate  cf 
one  of  the  new  pastures  behind  the  house,  I  was  struck  by  the 
quiet  and  peacefulness  of  the  scene.  On  the  back  lawn,  at  some 
distance  from  me,  the  lambs  were  at  play,  their  bleats  sounding 
loud  in  the  stillness,  while  the  green  of  the  pasture  was  dotted  here 
and  there  with  feeding  ewes,  that  looked  extraordinarily  white 
against  the  grey  skyline.  Near  to  me,  and  in  the  same  field, 
grazed  the  two  colts,  till  one  of  them,  discovering  my  presence, 
ceased  to  nibble  at  the  short  brown  grass  and  advanced  gingerly, 
as  though  to  inquire  my  business.  Presently,  having  satisfied  his 
curiosity,  he  wandered  off  again  to  join  his  companion. 

Notwithstanding  that  the  air  was  almost  at  freezing-point,  the 
thrushes  and  blackbirds  were  singing  in  the  little  plantations  round 
the  house,  though  not  with  so  full  a  voice  as  they  sang  a  fortnight 
since ;  while  from  the  tall  hedgerow  to  my  left  came  from  time  to 
time  the  insolent  crow  of  a  cock-pheasant,  rejoicing  perhaps  that 
he  had,  and  that  his  companions  had  not,  escaped  the  guns.  Pre- 
sently a  rustle  caught  my  ear,  and  in  the  ground-ivy  on  the  bank  a 
yard  or  so  away  I  perceived  two  little  field-mice  sporting  together, 
the  rustle  being  caused  by  the  stir  of  the  dead  leaves  and  sere 
grasses  as  they  moved  among  them.  While  I  watched,  one  of 
these  mice  climbed  up  the  stem  of  a  maple  bush  in  the  fence,  and 


FEBRUARY  117 

began  to  nibble  at  the  bark.  Perhaps  it  was  collecting  materials 
for  its  nest,  though  of  this  I  am  not  sure,  as  I  do  not  know  when 
these  little  creatures  begin  to  mate.  The  rabbits,  at  any  rate,  are 
already  breeding  freely,  for  I  have  seen  some  half-grown  young  ones 
in  the  wood  on  the  Bath  Hills ;  indeed,  I  believe  that  in  mild 
seasons  they  continue  to  multiply  all  through  the  winter.  As  I 
turned  to  go  home,  frightening  away  the  mice  by  my  movement, 
the  Bungay  church  clock  struck,  and  although  it  is  a  mile  and  a 
quarter  distant,  in  that  clear  still  air  it  sounded  close  at  hand. 

The  labourers'  rate  of  wages  on  this  farm  is  now  13J.  a  week 
and  harvest  money.  The  milkman,  however,  who  receives  no 
harvest  money,  gets  a  cottage  free  instead.  The  man  employed 
about  the  plantations  and  on  odd  jobs  is  paid  I2J-.,  and  an  old 
fellow,  who  has  been  working  as  a  stop-gap  for  the  last  six  months, 
I  \s,  only.  I  wish  that  there  were  any  reasonable  prospect  of  wages 
increasing,  but  this  seems  impossible  until  farming  can  be  made  to 
pay  again.  Under  the  present  state  of  affairs,  even  at  to-day's 
prices  the  labour  bill  frequently  devours  all  the  profits. 

To-day  Hood  sold  a  pair  of  the  little  red-poll  bullocks,  two- 
year-old  things,  to  the  butcher.  There  was  a  disagreement  as  to 
price.  Hood  asking  19/.  apiece,  and  the  butcher  offering  17/. 
Finally,  it  was  agreed  that  we  should  be  paid  by  dead  weight  at 
the  rate  of  7^".  a  stone,  which  at  present  is  the  top  figure  for  prime 
beef  in  this  neighbourhood.  The  butcher,  I  understand,  lays  the 
weight  of  the  animals  at  forty-five  stone  each,  while  Hood  estimates 
them  at  fifty. 

This  evening  I  went  to  support  a  neighbour  who  is  standing 
for  the  County  Council  in  this  division.  As  a  rule  there  is  now 
little  interest  shown  in  these  counties  in  elections  to  the  Council, 
but,  as  it  chances,  in  this  parish  there  lives  a  gentleman  of 
advanced  views,  a  pedlar  by  profession,  who,  with  a  courage  which 
does  him  credit  in  the  face  of  an  ever-increasing  lack  of  support, 
fights  the  seat  at  each  election,  the  more  light  heartedly  perhaps 
as  I  believe  that  the  expenses  of  the  contest  are  put  upon  the 
rates.     It  cannot  be  said  that  a  meeting  of  this  sort  is  otherwise 


ii8  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

than  rather  dreary,  as  it  is  impossible  for  the  most  eloquent 
speaker  to  become  impassioned  and  absorbing  on  the  subject 
of  main  or  parish  roads.  Before  I  made  my  speech,  however, 
as  nobody  seemed  to  have  anything  to  ask,  I  put  the  candidate  a 
question,  and  was  glad  to  elicit  from  him  the  information  that 
he  would  support  a  bye-law  forcing  all  wheeled  vehicles,  as 
well  as  bicycles,  to  carry  lighted  lamps  after  dark.  This  is  a 
regulation  that  would  add  greatly  to  the  comfort  and  safety  of  the 
roads,  especially  near  towns  on  a  market-night. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  County  Councils  have  proved  a 
great  success  and  very  useful  to  the  community ;  but  in  our 
part  of  the  world  it  is  not  always  easy  to  find  men  to  stand  for 
them.  Thus,  at  Bungay,  the  other  day,  I  am  told  that  there  was 
considerable  difficulty  owing  to  the  lack  of  a  candidate,  which  was 
only  got  over  by  persuading  the  present  excellent  and  worthy 
member  to  allow  himself  to  be  re-elected  somewhat  against  his 
will. 

But  if  the  interest  in  County  Councils  is  waning,  to  judge 
from  this  village  and  others  that  I  know  of,  that  in  Parish 
Councils  is  practically  dead.  In  the  beginning  there  was  a  great 
excitement  about  them — I  never  remember  seeing  so  many  men 
in  the  Ditchingham  schoolroom  together  as  on  the  occasion  of 
the  election  after  the  passing  of  the  Act ;  but  now  it  is  a  very 
different  story.  For  the  first  two  years  I  was  chairman  of  our 
Parish  Council,  but  I  cannot  say  that  we  accomplished  anything 
exciting.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  talk  about  allotments,  and 
applications  were  put  in  for  a  great  number  of  acres  of  ground 
— forty  I  believe ;  but  in  the  end  the  bona  fide  demand  was 
satisfied  by  my  offering  a  four-acre  field  to  the  Council,  the  third 
that  I  let  in  allotments.  Also  the  parish  charities  were  a  burning 
question  ;  but  the  matter  was  referred  to  the  Commissioners,  with 
the  result  that  we  are  very  much  where  we  were  before,  excepting 
only  that  the  charities  have  decreased  in  amount  owing  to  the  fall 
in  the  value  of  land.  What  excited  most  argument,  however,  was, 
1  think,  the  question  of  a  safe,  which  it  was  proposed  to  buy  at  a 


FEBRUARY  119 

cost  of  17/  I  pointed  out  that,  speaking /w;?^;  facie^  and  with  a 
mind  open  to  correction,  it  seemed  useless  to  spend  17/.  of  the 
parish  money  upon  a  safe  when  we  had  few  or  no  documents  to 
put  in  it.  But  although  the  Council  as  a  body  admitted  that 
there  was  some  force  in  this  argument,  it  was  not  held  to  be  con- 
clusive, since,  urged  the  opposition,  there  might  at  some  future 
time  be  documents,  and  that  then  a  safe  would  be  greatly  missed. 
The  matter  came  up  again  and  again  ;  indeed,  I  am  not  sure  that 
it  was  settled  when,  at  last,  I  resigned  the  chairmanship.  I  did 
not  again  stand  for  the  Parish  Council,  as  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  amount  of  time  spent  in  discussion  was  disproportionate  to 
the  results  achieved.  Possibly,  however,  we  are  an  extra  argu- 
mentative set  in  Ditchingham,  and  in  other  parishes  it  may  be 
different. 

February  25. — I  have  been  ill  for  the  last  few  days  and  unable 
to  go  about  the  farm,  but  this  afternoon  I  managed  to  get  out  for 
a  little  to  see  the  drilling,  until  I  chanced  to  meet  the  doctor,  who 
sent  me  home.  On  the  23rd  we  drilled  the  oats  on  the  top  of  the 
fourteen-acre  on  Baker's,  No.  42,  and  on  the  24th  on  the  two 
pieces  of  glebe,  Nos.  39  and  40.  Here  they  went  in  but  fairly 
well,  for,  after  it  has  been  ploughed  for  some  weeks,  this  land, 
being  so  gravelly,  has  a  tendency  to  set  hard  and  impede  the 
action  of  the  drill. 

The  two  bullocks  which  I  mentioned  as  having  been  sold  on  the 
22nd  turned  the  scale  when  cleaned  at  47  J  stone  each,  that  is, 
exactly  midway  between  the  estimates  of  the  seller  and  buyer.  This 
is  instructive,  as  it  suggests  that  a  man's  perfectly  honest  preju- 
dice in  his  own  favour  amounts  to  about  five  per  cent. — at  least 
where  cattle  are  concerned.  It  was  supposed  by  both  parties 
that  one  of  these  little  bullocks  weighed  three  stone  more  than 
the  other.  In  fact,  however,  the  difference  was  only  three 
pounds,  which  shows  how  easily  the  best  and  most  experienced 
judges  may  be  deceived  in  their  estimates  of  the  weight  of  live 
stock. 


120  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Miss  Pegotty,  I  am  thankful  to  say,  found  her  legs  a  day  or 
two  back,  and  is  now  making  a  good  recovery.  Had  it  gone 
otherwise  it  would  have  been  a  sad  loss. 

To-day  the  Ape  field,  No.  27,  was  drilled  with  barley,  which 
went  in  beautifully.  When  I  crawled  away  in  company  with  the 
doctor  the  drill  had  just  moved  into  the  four-acres  opposite, 
No.  25,  but  I  do  not  know  if  it  finished  there  to-night. 

February  28. — On  the  26th  we  drilled  the  three-and-a-half 
acres  on  All  Hallows,  No.  33,  with  barley.  The  cultivator,  that  is 
a  heavy  instrument  with  hook-shaped  teeth,  was  put  through  it  in 
the  morning  dragged  by  three  horses,  after  which  it  was  cross- 
harrowed.  Thus  it  took  all  day  to  drill  this  little  field  and  harrow 
the  seed  in. 

Yesterday,  Sunday,  was  squally  and  cold,  with  rain  in  the 
morning,  and  to-day  there  is  a  nor'- west  gale  with  intervals  of 
sunshine.  We  have  dragged  the  nine-acre  on  All  Hallows, 
No.  36,  with  the  cultivator  and  drilled  about  half  of  it,  the  barley 
going  in  so  well  that  I  think  it  will  puzzle  the  rooks  to  find  it 
beneath  the  fine  mould.  This  morning  I  was  marking  the  trees 
that  have  to  come  out  from  the  Bath  Hills.  We  are  so  busy  that 
it  is  hard  to  find  time  for  tree-cutting  this  year ;  but  as  the  Lodge 
has  been  let  to  a  tenant  for  a  term  from  next  September,  I  am 
anxious  to  get  them  out  and  have  done  with  it  in  order  to  avoid 
disturbance  beyond  the  house  during  his  occupation,  as  everything 
felled  on  that  portion  of  the  Vineyard  Hills  must  be  carted  down 
the  drive.  Also,  we  need  the  timber  for  the  iron-roofed  sheds 
which  I  hope  to  put  up  over  the  various  yards.  It  would  be 
very  bad  economy  to  buy  oak  and  deal  when  we  have  stuff  that 
'  wants  to  come  out '  which  will  serve  our  turn. 

I  know  of  nothing  in  life  that  needs  more  discretion  than  the 
marking  of  trees,  unless  it  be  an  attempt  to  patch  up  a  family 
quarrel.  I  am  supposing,  of  course,  that  the  trees  are  being  cut 
more  with  a  view  to  the  advantage  of  the  survivors  and  of  the 
plantation  generally  than  for  simple  profit.     One  may  have  the 


FEBRUARY  i2i 

very  best  intentions,  and  have  studied  the  tree  or  trees  from  all 
standpoints  and  at  every  season  of  the  year  in  order  to  decide 
which  shall  go  and  which  shall  stay,  and  then,  after  all,  find  that 
a  mistake  has  been  made.  Also  the  error,  if  it  be  one,  is  so 
utterly  irredeemable,  for  no  ordinary  person  can  hope  to  live  long 
enough  to  repair  it. 

It  is  extraordinary,  however,  to  see  what  growth  trees  will  make 
during  the  span  of  a  single  life.  Thus  on  the  lawn  of  this  house 
stand  many  good-sized  timbers,  elm,  oak,  beech,  lime,  and  wal- 
nut. With  the  exception  of  the  walnuts,  which  are  ancient,  every 
tree  of  them  was  planted  within  the  memory  of  a  relative,  now  just 
eighty  years  of  age,  who  was  living  in  this  house  at  the  time. 
Indeed,  the  man  who  actually  set  them  was  shoeing  horses  until, 
having  been  much  hurt  by  a  kick,  he  took  to  his  bed  and  died  not 
very  long  ago.  It  is  not  given  to  many  to  see  oaks  planted,  cut 
down  as  good  timber,  seasoned,  made  into  bookcases,  window- 
frames,  and  shutters,  and  set  up  to  furnish  the  room  from  which 
in  childhood  they  watched  the  gardener  setting  them.  Yet  this 
has  happened  to  the  relative  in  question  ;  moreover,  it  is  now 
some  ten  years  since  the  trees  were  felled. 

It  should  be  added  that  there  is  something  in  this  soil  which  is 
extraordinarily  well  suited  to  the  needs  of  hardwood  timber,  which 
flourishes  here  exceedingly.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in 
Websdill  Wood,  at  Bedingham,  which  is  also  a  clay  soil,  though 
stiffer,  the  oaks,  that  seem  to  have  been  planted  for  many 
generations,  are  for  the  most  part  no  larger  than  those  upon  this 
lawn.  At  any  rate,  old  men  at  Bedingham  have  told  me  that 
they  have  not  been  able  to  notice  any  change  in  them  since  they 
were  boys.  The  timber  of  the  trees  also  goes  to  corroborate  this 
statement,  as  when  we  steam-sawed  a  parcel  of  them  a  few  years 
ago,  I  noticed  that  the  wood  seemed  as  hard  as  iron,  and  that 
there  was  practically  no  '  sap,'  that  is,  soft  outer  wood,  which  is 
useless  for  most  purposes. 

Altogether  I  think  that  I  marked  about  fifty  trees  this 
morning,  small  for  the  most  part  and  of  every  variety.     Some  of 


i?2  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

these  I  find,  by  the  healed-up  scars  upon  them,  I  have  already 
marked  in  past  years  and  then  spared.  Indeed,  it  is  evident  that 
in  several  instances  I  have  done  this  twice,  but  the  day  of  doom 
has  come  at  last.  The  trees  upon  these  Bath  Hills  have  been 
very  much  neglected  in  past  times  ;  if  someone  had  thinned  them 
judiciously  fifty  years  ago  they  would  be  much  better  specimens 
than  they  are  at  present.  As  it  is,  the  younger  stands  have  been 
allowed  to  crowd  each  other,  and  even  to  destroy  and  distort  the 
few  old-established  timbers  by  cutting  off  the  air  from  their  lower 
boughs  and  causing  them  to  die. 

I  find,  however,  that  there  are  two  schools  as  regards  the 
treatment  of  timber.  The  first,  in  which  are  included  eight 
women  out  of  ten,  love  to  see  trees  of  all  sorts  huddled  up 
together  as  close  as  nature  will  allow  them  to  exist — long,  lank 
boles,  with  tufts  of  foliage  on  the  top  of  them,  and  below  a  few 
dead  or  dying  branches.  He  who  ventures  to  suggest  that  it 
would  be  a  good  thing  to  let  a  little  air  into  a  thicket  of  this  sort 
is  generally  received  with  indignation,  and  probably  hears  it  stated 
afterwards  :  *  Oh,  yes.  So-and-so  wants  to  cut  down  every  tree  he 
sees  ! '  As  a  rule,  indeed,  such  a  plantation  is  too  far  gone  to  be 
touched  with  the  object  of  improving  the  beauty  of  the  specimens ; 
also  it  is  rather  dangerous  to  let  in  the  wind  among  these  long- 
shanked  fellows,  for  then  more  are  apt  to  go  than  you  wish  to 
part  with.  I  understand,  also,  that  to  grow  timber  in  this  fashion 
is  the  most  profitable  method  of  forestry ;  at  least,  I  have  observed 
very  large  woods  managed  thus  in  France  and  Germany,  where  I 
believe  they  understand  such  things.  But  for  beauty,  surely  there 
is  nothing  to  equal  trees  as  they  are  grown  in  a  ordinary  English 
covert,  where  they  receive  attention  when  the  fell  is  cut,  once  in 
every  seven  years,  and  any  which  are  not  wanted  are  turned  into 
profit. 

On  the  lawn  in  front  of  this  house  stand  four  single  trees,  two 
beeches  and  two  limes,  which  have  never  been  crowded  or  deformed 
by  the  too  close  company  of  their  kind.  To  my  fancy  those 
four  trees  are  better  worth  looking  at  than  all  the  dozens  which 


FEBRUARY  i?^ 

surround  them ;  indeed,  their  proportions  are  a  pleasure  to  con- 
template at  every  time  of  year.  But  about  trees,  as  in  other 
things,  opinions  vary. 

This  afternoon  I  had  a  discussion  with  Hood  as  to  what  should 
be  done  with  the  lambs.  He  is  of  opinion— and  on  the  whole  I 
agree  with  him — that  it  will  be  best  to  sell  them  all  out  and  buy 
in  some  black-faced  ewes  in  the  autumn.  I  very  much  doubt 
whether  it  would  pay  to  keep  on  these  cross-bred  *  gimmel '  lambs 
and  make  ewes  of  them,  as  I  think  that  they  would  lack  size.  So 
they  will  have  to  go,  poor  little  things,  and  the  Southdown  ewes 
with  them.  I  think  that  I  shall  keep  to  Southdown  rams,  however, 
as  I  am  sure  that  the  cross  gives  quality  to  the  mutton. 


124  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


MARCH 

March  i. — To-day  we  finished  getting  in  the  barley  on  the 
All  Hallows  nine-acres,  No.  36.  The  last  of  it  was  drilled  in  a 
drizzling  rain  and  under  a  threatening  sky.  While  the  barley  was 
being  sown  the  cultivator  got  to  work  upon  the  eight-acres  on 
Baker's,  No.  41,  preparing  the  seed  bed ;  but  so  soon  as  the  drill 
was  at  liberty  a  sharp  storm  of  hail  and  rain  came  down,  making 
this  stiff  land  too  sticky  for  us  to  attempt  to  deal  with  it.  In  the 
afternoon  we  took  refuge  in  the  ordinary  bad-weather  occupation 
of  carting  manure.  No.  41  was  under  root  last  year,  and  had 
been  dosed  with  'artificial,'  as  is  customary  when  a  crop  is 
being  grown  which  must  be  taken  at  a  valuation  by  the  landlord 
or  next  tenant.  In  walking  over  the  field  I  observed  little  grey 
patches  of  this  manure  still  lying  undissolved  in  the  soil,  a  curious 
illustration  of  the  persistent  character  of  the  drought  that  has  pre- 
vailed since  it  was  scattered  up  to  the  present  time,  which  has 
prevented  the  stuff  from  melting  away  and  becoming  assimilated 
with  the  earth. 

March  2. — Winter  seems  to  have  set  in  at  last,  for  this  morn- 
ing we  have  storms  of  snow  and  sleet,  and  can  do  nothing  upon 
the  land  except  cart  from  the  yards. 

Here  I  am  obliged  practically  to  suspend  my  diary,  as  I  spent 
the  remainder  of  March  in  London.  From  the  farming  point 
of  view  this  is  no  great  loss,  however,  as  throughout  the  month,  to 
judge  by  the  notes  that  Mrs.  Hood  has  kindly  kept  for  me,  the 
weather  was  so  bitter  and  generally  bad  that  vegetation  made  but 


MARCH  125 

(ittle  progress.  Still,  the  work  on  the  farm  went  on,  barley  being 
drilled  whenever  the  state  of  the  land  would  allow  of  it,  varied 
with  ploughing  and  manure  carting  when  it  would  not.  The 
remainder  of  the  ewes  lambed  satisfactorily,  and  we  made  an 
average  of  something  over  sixty  pounds  of  butter  per  week. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  month,  also,  we  began  to  chain-harrow 
the  pastures,  and  this,  with  the  ordinary  routine  of  root  carting 
into  the  sheds,  and  stone  carting  on  to  the  roads  in  satisfaction  of 
a  small  contract  with  the  surveyors,  makes  up  a  not  very  interest- 
ing record. 

March  31. — I  returned  home  yesterday  to  find  the  country  in 
very  much  the  same  state  as  I  left  it  nearly  a  month  ago.  During 
this  month  the  weather  seems  to  have  been  persistently  cold. 
For  the  first  three  weeks  it  was  dry.  Then  came  a  great  three- 
days'  nor'-east  gale  with  a  heavy  fall  of  snow— here  we  had  six 
inches  on  the  level — followed  by  a  cold  rain  which  filled  up  the 
dykes  and  ponds,  and  not  before  it  was  needed.  At  one  house 
in  this  neighbourhood  the  drought  had  made  it  necessary  to  cart 
water  from  the  lake,  and  in  the  villages  beyond  Bungay  known  as 
*  the  Parishes,'  where  the  inhabitants  depend  mainly  on  shallow 
ponds  for  their  supply,  they  were  in  great  straits  for  water ;  indeed, 
a  famine  of  it  was  feared.  However,  this  risk  is  done  with  for 
the  present ;  indeed,  the  floods  have  been  out  on  the  marshes. 

The  snow  still  lies  in  the  holls,  and  the  meadows  are  more  rusty- 
faced  than  when  I  went  away.  In  the  sown  fields  it  is  difficult  to 
see  any  change,  though  the  oats  drilled  for  sheep's  food  have 
pricked  through,  and  the  wheat  has  perhaps  grown  a  little.  The 
barley  does  not  stir  as  yet,  and  Hood  has  already  begun  to  shake 
his  head  over  its  prospects.  He  believes  that  its  early  seeding  (of 
which  I  was  an  advocate)  will  prove  of  no  advantage,  although  it 
went  in  so  well,  alleging  as  his  reason  that  much  of  the  grain 
will  perish  in  the  ground.  I,  on  the  other  hand,  believe  that  the 
fate  of  the  crop  will  depend  not  upon  its  early  seeding,  but  upon 
the  weather  we  experience  during  the  next  thfee  months.     Barley 


126  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

in  our  parts  will  not  stand  continuous  wet  and  cold ,  it  turns 
yellow,  and  the  sample  is  injured  for  malting  purposes. 

The  sheep  have  done  fairly  well ;  the  forty-nine  ewes,  one  of 
which,  if  not  ghast — that  is,  barren — has  not  yet  lambed,  having 
produced  sixty-one  lambs  without  accident  to  themselves  or  their 
offspring.  We  reckon  one  and  a  half  a  very  good  fall  of  lambs,  but 
one  and  a  quarter,  which  is  about  our  proportion,  is  by  no  means 
to  be  despised.  Of  course  it  means  that  there  are  not  quite  so 
many  doubles  as  there  might  be ;  but  where  the  farmer  looks  to 
sell  his  lambs  fat  to  the  butcher  within  a  month  or  two  of  Easter, 
doubles  have  their  disadvantages,  as  then  it  must  be  a  strong  ewe 
that  can  cause  them  to  meet  the  butcher's  eye  as  he  would  wish  to 
see  them.  The  flock  is  being  penned  at  night  on  the  three-acre. 
No.  1 1,  with  a  view  to  improving  the  bottom  of  this  young  pasture, 
which  has  grown  somewhat  thin.  In  the  daytime  they  run  out  on 
one  or  other  of  the  meadows,  where  root  is  thrown  to  them,  and 
every  night  they  are  shut  in  a  new  fold  on  the  three-acre  and 
receive  a  ration  of  corn,  hay,  and  beet. 

One  of  the  ploughmen,  Fairhead,  is  harrowing  the  pastures 
with  the  two-horse  patent  chain  drag.  This  is  a  new  instrument 
which  I  have  bought  this  year,  and,  though  it  looks  light,  a  very 
effective  one,  being  so  contrived  that  every  part  of  it  pulling  against 
the  other  part  causes  an  equal  strain  to  come  upon  each  tooth  or 
cutter.  These  teeth  are  solid  triangular  wedges  of  steel,  which 
bite  into  the  moss  and  tear  it  up.  Either  face  of  this  harrow  can 
be  used  for  dragging  purposes,  but  one  of  them  cuts  a  good  deal 
more  deeply  than  the  other. 

All  my  three  mares  here  have  proved  to  be  in  foal,  also  the 
old  one  at  Bedingham.  This  is  rather  too  much  of  a  good  thing, 
as  while  they  are  attending  to  their  domestic  duties  we  may  be 
rather  short  of  horses.  I  did. not  think  that  the  ancient  dame  at 
Bedingham  would  produce  any  more  foals,  nor  should  I  have 
greatly  grieved  if  she  had  taken  the  same  view  of  the  matter.  I 
am  tired  of  her  Roman-nosed,  long-legged  offspring,  which, 
although  they  are  good  animals  enough,  feed  them  as  you  will, 


MARCH  .     127 

steadily  decline  to  grow  fat.  The  worst  of  breeding  horses  is  that, 
if  a  colt  is  unhandsome  or  has  a  blemish  which  would  prevent  its 
fetching  full  value  on  the  market,  his  owner  finds  himself  doomed 
to  its  company  for  the  rest  of  its  natural  life.  The  good  animals 
are  sold  to  make  a  better  show  in  the  balance-sheet,  the  bad  ones 
remain  at  home. 


128  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


APRIL 

April  I. — Last  night  there  was  a  frost,  but  except  for  ashopver 
in  the  afternoon  the  day  has  been  fine.  The  meadow  harrowing 
goes  on,  one  plough  is  at  work,  and  the  remaining  men  are 
spreading  muck  for  root  on  All  Hallows,  No.  29.  This  is  done 
by  throwing  the  manure  between  the  baulks,  which  are  then  split 
back  over  it  by  a  plough.  I  went  to  see  the  oxen  at  Baker's,  or 
rather  the  eight  survivors  of  them.  One  or  other  of  these  unlucky 
beasts  has  been  continually  ill  since  I  was  away,  mostly  from 
'  blowing.'  My  own  opinion  is  that,  having  been  starved  for  years, 
they  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of  gorging  themselves  with 
good  food  whenever  they  get  the  chance.  However,  their  various 
ailments  notwithstanding,  they  are  without  doubt  very  much 
improved  in  personal  appearance,  less  hungry-looking  and  slab- 
sided,  with  better  coats. 

At  Bedingham  this  afternoon  I  found  the  first  sown  field  of 
barley.  No.  5,  and  the  oats  on  No.  13,  coming  up  strongly,  but 
the  pease  upon  the  same  piece  are  backward.  If  anything,  the 
winter  beans.  No.  14,  are  too  close,  and  in  spite  of  various  horse- 
hoeings  tufts  of  the  self-sown  barley  are  still  showing  among  them. 
The  wheats  are  looking  very  well,  but  two  of  the  three  pieces  are 
so  thick  that  it  has  been  necessary  to  thin  them  by  dragging  out 
some  of  the  plants  with  the  harrow.  The  third  piece,  No.  9, 
which  it  may  be  remembered  was  a  clover  layer  last  year,  is 
thinner,  but  I  think  that  there  is  a  sufficient  plant.  Moore  was 
employed  in  dragging  the  meadows,  but  as  we  have  no  patent 
grass-scarifiers  here  the  work  has  to  be  done  by  an  ordinary 
harrow  into  which  stout  bushes  of  white-thorn  are  twisted.     A  very 


APRIL  129 

good  instrument  for  brushing  pastures,  where  there  is  little  or  no 
moss  to  be  dealt  with,  can  be  made  by  twining  thorns  into  the 
bars  of  an  ordinary  lift-gate,  weighting  it  with  a  log,  and  using  it  as 
a  drag. 

April  5. — Last  Saturday,  the  2nd,  we  had  another  frost, 
followed,  by  a  fine  day.  Sunday  was  cold  and  cloudy  ;  Monday  also 
cold  with  sunshine  and  a  high  wind,  west  and  nor'-west ;  to-day 
also  cold,  wind  east  to  south,  with  intervals  of  sunshine.  The 
work  is  the  same  as  that  of  last  week :  grass  harrowing,  manure- 
spreading,  and  baulk-splitting,  not  very  interesting  operations,  any 
of  them,  but  absolutely  necessary.  Compared  with  other  and 
rougher  countries,  it  is  curious  to  note  the  ceaseless  nature  of  the 
work  needful  to  the  carrying  on  of  an  English  farm.  Although  it  is 
the  fashion  among  people  who  know  nothing  about  him  to  hold  up 
the  English  agriculturist  as  the  commonest  of  fools,  he  has  brought 
cultivation  to  such  a  pitch  of  science  that  every  day  demands  its  ap- 
propriate and  necessary  labour,  without  which  all  would  be  spoilt. 
Yet  the  pity  of  it  is  that,  notwithstanding  the  care,  knowledge,  and 
intelligence  which  are  put  into  the  working  of  the  land,  under 
present  conditions  it  can  scarcely  be  made  to  pay.  The  machinery 
works,  the  mill  goes  round ;  the  labourers,  those  who  are  left  of  them, 
earn  their  wage,  such  as  it  is,  and  the  beast  his  provender ;  the 
goodman  rises  early  and  rests  late,  taking  thought  for  the  day  and 
the  morrow,  but  when  at  Michaelmas  he  balances  his  books  there 
is  no  return,  and  lo  !  the  bailiff  is  glaring  through  the  gates. 
Although  there  have  been  gleams  of  hope  during  the  past  year,  in 
our  parts  the  ancient  industry  of  agriculture  is  nearly  moribund, 
and  if  the  land,  or  the  poorer  and  therefore  the  more  considerable 
portion  of  it,  is  farmed  fairly,  it  is  in  many  instances  being  worked 
at  a  loss,  or  at  any  rate  without  a  living  profit. 

The  reader  may  say  that  this  is  impossible,  that  no  one  would 
carry  on  the  business  under  these  conditions ;  yet  it  is  still 
carried  on,  very  often  from  sheer  force  of  habit,  or  because  those 
who  practise  it  have  nothing  else  to  which  to  turn.     The  small 

K 


t3o  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

men  only  too  often  keep  up  the  game  till  beggary  overtakes  them, 
when  they  adjourn  to  the  workhouse  or  live  upon  the  charity  of 
their  friends.  The  larger  farmers  struggle  forward  from  Michaelmas 
to  Michaelmas,  and  at  last  take  refuge  in  a  cottage,  or,  if  they  are 
fortunate,  find  a  position  as  steward  upon  some  estate.  The  land- 
lords with  farms  upon  their  hands  work  them  with  capital  borrowed 
at  high  interest  from  the  bank,  till  they  can  let  them  upon  any  terms 
to  any  sort  of  tenant.  Unless  they  have  private  means  to  draw  on, 
or  are  able  to  earn  money,  into  their  end  it  is  best  not  to  inquire  ; 
they  sink  and  sink  until  they  vanish  beneath  the  surface  of  the  great 
sea  of  English  society,  and  their  ancient  homes  and  accustomed 
place  are  filled  by  the  successful  speculator  or  the  South  African 
millionaire. 

This  is  the  result  of  Free  Trade,  which  if  up  to  the  present  it 
has  brought  a  flush  of  prosperity  to  the  people  as  a  whole,  has  taken 
away  the  living  of  those  classes  that  exist  by  the  land,  at  any  rate 
in  our  Eastern  Counties.  When  that  principle  was  introduced 
ruin  to  agriculture  was  foretold,  but  at  first,  owing  to  a  variety  of 
circums'  ances,  it  did  not  fall.  Yet  disaster  was  only  postponed ; 
now  it  has  come,  and  whether  the  land  and  those  who  live  on  it 
will  survive  is  more  than  I  or  anyone  else  can  say.  The  truth  is 
that  the  matter  is  no  longer  of  pressing  interest  to  the  British 
nation.  The  British  nation  lives  by  trade  and  fills  itself  with  the 
cheap  food  products  of  foreign  countries ;  the  fruit  of  the  fields 
around  its  cities  is  of  little  weight  to  it  one  way  or  the  other.  If 
all  England  went  out  of  cultivation  to-morrow,  I  doubt  whether  it 
would  make  any  material  difference  to  the  consumer — the  neces- 
saries of  life  would  still  pour  in  from  abroad.  What  would 
happen  if  a  state  of  affairs  should  arise  under  which  corn  and 
other  food  could  not  be  freely  imported  is  another  matter.  When 
it  does  arise,  no  doubt  the  town-bred  British  Public,  and  the 
Governments  which  live  to  do  what  they  conceive  to  be  the  will  of 
that  public,  will  give  their  earnest  attention  to  the  problem,  perhaps 
too  late.  Meanwhile,  all  is  doubtless  as  it  should  be,  and,  as  there  is 
not  the  slightest  prospect  of  redress,  we  poor  farmers  must  bow  our 


APRIL  131 

heads  to  the  inevitable,  and,  while  hoping  for  a  turn  of  Fortune's 
wheel,  make  the  best  of  things  as  we  find  them  and  be  thankful. 

Yet,  with  becoming  humility,  I  would  venture  to  ask  a  question* 
of  those  who  understand  these  matters. 

A.,  an  English  farmer,  grows  a  quarter  of  barley  which  pays 
rent  to  the  landlord  (part  of  which  the  landlord  hands  over  to  the 
Government  in  the  form  of  taxes),  rates  to  the  parish,  tithe  to  the 
parson,  and  land-tax  to  the  State.  This  quarter  of  barley  he  offers 
for  sale  on  Bungay  market.  B.,  an  Argentine  or  other  foreign 
farmer,  grows  a  quarter  of  barley  and  also  offers  it  for  sale  on 
Bungay  market,  to  compete  against  that  offered  by  A.  This 
quarter  of  barley  has  paid  no  rent  to  a  British  landlord,  no  rates 
to  a  British  parish,  no  tithe  to  a  British  parson,  no  tax  to  the 
British  Government.  Also,  in  practice,  it  has  the  benefit  of 
preferential  rates  on  British  railways,  and  is  carted  to  the  market 
over  roads  towards  the  cost  of  which  it  has  not  subscribed,  as  A.'s 
quarter  is  called  upon  to  do. 

In  what  sense,  then,  is  the  trade  which  takes  place  in  these 
two  competing  quarters  of  barley  Free  Trade  ?  That  it  is  free  as 
air  in  the  case  of  the  Argentine  quarter  I  understand.  I  should 
go  further,  and  call  it  bounty-fed ;  but  surely  in  the  case  of  the 
English  quarter  it  is  most  unfree,  and  indeed  much  fettered  by  the 
burden  of  rent,  rates,  tithe,  and  taxes,  which  have  been  exacted 
upon  it  for  the  local  and  imperial  benefit.  To  make  the  trade  equal, 
just,  and  free  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  before  it  appears  on 
Bungay  market,  ought  not  the  Argentine  quarter  to  contribute  to  our 
local  and  imperial  exchequers  an  exact  equivalent  of  the  amount 
paid  by  the  British  quarter  ?  Why  should  the  Englishman  bear  all 
these  burdens  and  the  foreigner  who  seeks  the  advantage  of  our 
markets  be  rid  of  them?  In  the  case  of  whisky  I  understand 
the  principle  to  be  that  imported  spirits  should  pay  an  approximately 
equal  tax  to  that  exacted  upon  those  manufactured  in  this  country. 
Why,  then,  should  not  this  rule — if  it  is  the  rule — be  applied  to 
other  things  besides  whisky  ;  the  barley  from  which  it  is  distilled, 
for  instance  ? 


132  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

This  afternoon  we  were  engaged  in  harrowing  the  young  pease 
and  beans  to  kill  the  redweed,  as  poppies  are  called  here.  One 
might  think  that  the  result  of  dragging  iron  spikes  over  the  tender- 
plants  of  these  crops  would  be  to  destroy  an  enormous  number  of 
them,  but  in  practice  this  is  not  the  case.  Indeed,  it  is  quite  rare 
to  see  a  seedling  broken  off.  I  suppose  the  explanation  to  be  that 
if  the  tooth  of  the  harrow  hits  it,  the  young  shoot,  being  pliable, 
bends  to  one  side  and  allows  the  instrument  to  pass.  With 
twitchgrass  and  redweed  the  case  is  different — they  catch  on  the 
spikes  and  are  dragged  out  of  the  soil.  In  harrowing  the  beans  on 
Baker's,  No.  43,  we  discovered  that  a  baulk  had  been  missed  by 
the  drill,  which  was  sent  for  at  once  to  sow  it.  Owing  to  the  cold 
weather  and  the  backward  state  of  the  crop,  I  do  not  think  that 
there  will  be  much  difference  when  harvest  time  comes,  although 
the  crop  has  nine  weeks'  start  of  the  seeds  sown  upon  this  particular 
baulk.  To  the  observer  it  seems  curious  that  this  accident  should 
not  happen  more  often  than  it  does,  since,  with  two  sets  of  harrows 
going  before  and  behind  them,  it  is  very  easy  for  the  men  with  the 
drill  to  make  an  error  and  imagine  that  a  baulk  which  has  been 
harrowed  is  one  which  they  have  just  drilled.  A  faint  blush  of 
yellowish  green — I  can  describe  it  in  no  other  way — is  beginning 
to  spread  itself  over  the  brown  surface  of  the  field  as  the  myriad 
tiny  spears  of  the  sprouting  oats  and  barley  rise  from  their  long 
sleep  in  the  winter  earth.  As  yet,  however,  the  progress  of 
vegetation  is  very  slow,  owing  to  the  persistent  cold  of  the  nights. 

April  7. — Yesterday,  which  was  cold  again,  with  a  high  sou'-west 
wind,  we  were  ploughing  the  two  acres  of  land  in  the  middle  of 
the  Thwaite  field,  No.  28,  where  we  propose  to  sow  carrots.  For 
this  crop  the  plough  is  set  as  deep  as  it  will  travel,  since  carrots  love 
to  have  well-stirred  soil  for  their  roots  to  work  in.  Also  they  like 
light  soil,  and  some  people  hold  that  it  is  wise  not  to  give  them 
too  much  manure.  I  know  that  the  carrots  which  we  grew  last 
year  upon  the  All  Hallows  field,  No.  33,  which  was  heavily 
manured   with  Bungay  compost,  came  very  coarse  and  'fangy, 


APRIL  133 

although  the  beet  upon  the  same  field  were  splendid.  Of  course, 
this  may  have  been  owing  to  the  drought,  but  a  tenant  of  mine 
showed  me  some  beautiful  roots,  long,  straight,  and  clean,  that  he 
had  grown  on  light  unmanured  land.  We  have  been  dragging 
this  Thwaite  field  vigorously  to  get  the  twitch  out  of  it,  which  upon 
this  soil  is  a  fearsome  and  persistent  weed.  I  wonder  how  many 
tumbril-loads  of  twitch  I  have  burnt  upon  the  Thwaite  field  since 
I  began  its  cultivation  ?  And  still  the  smoke  of  those  fires  goes 
up  ! 

The  back  lawn  is  being  rolled  also.  It  has  been  fed  for  either 
two  or  three  years,  and  is  now  to  be  set  for  hay.  This  pasture 
has  indeed  a  different  face  on  it  to  that  which  it  wore  when  I  took 
it  in  hand  some  eight  or  nine  years  ago.  Then  it  was  waterlogged 
and  mossy  ;  moreover,  the  tenant,  I  believe,  had  mown  it  for  nine 
years  in  succession,  which  of  course  he  had  no  business  to  do. 
Since  then  it  has  been  pipe-drained  at  a  cost  of  5/.  per  acre,  dressed 
with  basic  slag,  sown  with  trefoil  seed,  three  pounds  to  the  acre, 
and  heavily  grazed,  with  the  result  that  it  is  now  as  good  a  pasture 
as  any  in  the  parish.  I  am  always  grateful  to  that  back  lawn,  since 
it  was  owing  to  a  difference  of  opinion  with  my  late  tenant 
concerning  it  that  I  took  to  farming,  which,  if  as  yet  it  has  not 
enriched  me,  has  at  least  taught  me  many  things  about  the  ways  of 
Nature  that  seem  good  for  a  man  to  know. 

To-day  is,  in  fact,  the  first  of  spring,  whatever  the  calendar 
may  say  to  the  contrary,  the  air  being  many  degrees  warmer  not- 
withstanding the  high  sou'-west  wind.  It  is  perfectly  astonishing 
to  see  the  difference  caused  by  only  twenty-four  hours  of  warmth 
and  sunshine.  Fields  that  were  brown,  or  only  just  tinged  with 
green,  are  now  almost  verdant ;  the  tulips  have  begun  to  blow, 
and  the  primroses  to  appear  in  yellow  clusters  of  tight  buds  and 
star-like  blooms.  When,  amidst  the  long  succession  of  vile 
samples  that  make  up  the  English  climate  during  the  months  of 
March,  April,  and  May,  we  do  chance  to  '  happen  on ' — as  they 
say  here — a  perfect  day,  how  perfect  it  is  !  How  glad  it  makes  us 
also  j  worries  that  seemed  heavy  enough  before  become  suddenly 


134  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

lighter,  and,  like  the  opening  flowers,  prospects  which  were  of  the 
gloomiest  take  the  rainbow  hues  of  hope. 

It  is  curious  how  extraordinarily  susceptible  some  of  us  are  to 
the  influences  of  weather,  and  even  to  those  of  the  different  seasons. 
I  do  not  think  that  these  affect  the  dwellers  in  towns  so  much,  for, 
their  existence  being  more  artificial,  the  ties  which  bind  them  to 
Nature  are  loosened  ;  but  with  folk  who  live  in  the  country  and 
study  it,  it  is  otherwise.  Every  impulse  of  the  seasons  throbs 
through  them,  and  month  by  month,  even  when  they  are 
unconscious  of  it,  their  minds  reflect  something  of  the  tone  and 
colour  of  the  pageant  of  the  passing  day.  After  all,  why  should 
it  not  be  so,  seeing  that  our  bodies  are  built  up  of  the  products  of 
the  earth,  and  that  in  them  are  to  be  found  many,  if  not  all,  of  the 
elements  that  go  to  make  the  worlds,  or  at  any  rate  our  world, 
and  every  fruit  and  thing  it  bears  ?  The  wonder  is  not  that  we  are 
so  much  in  tune  with  Nature's  laws  and  phases,  but  that  we  can 
ever  escape  or  quell  their  mastery.  This  is  where  the  brain  and 
the  will  of  man  come  in. 

To-day  Fairhead  is  harrowing  on  the  nine-acre  marsh.  No.  19. 
The  bottom  of  this  marsh  grows  thick  as  tow,  and  it  is  hard  work 
for  the  two  big  mares  to  drag  the  new  patent  harrow  through  it, 
especially  as  they  are  both  of  them  very  near  to  foaling.  One 
might  think  that  under  these  circumstances  such  toiling  was 
injurious  to  them,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  seems  that  the  more 
exercise  they  have  right  up  to  their  time  the  better,  provided 
that  it  is  steady  in  its  nature,  and  not  of  a  kind  which  is  likely  to 
wring  or  jerk  them,  such  as  shaft  work  while  carting  heavy  loads. 
Harrowing  or  ploughing  they  can  do  as  well  as  ever,  though,  of 
course,  they  are  a  little  slow  in  their  movements,  and  especially  at 
the  turns.  By  the  way,  Fairhead  tells  me  that  we  very  nearly  lost 
one  of  the  two,  the  mare  Scot,  last  night.  About  ten  o'clock  he 
went  up  to  the  Buildings  to  see  if  she  was  all  right,  and  found  her 
'  cast '  upon  her  side  in  such  a  position  that,  owing  to  her  state 
and  size,  she  could  not  find  her  feet  again,  but  was  lying  with  her 
legs  in  the  air,  kicking.     Had  he  not  chanced   to  discover  her, 


APRIL  135 

there  is  no  doubt  that  by  the  morning  she  would  have  been  dead 
from  fright  and  exhaustion.  As  it  happened,  however,  by  the 
help  of  another  man  and  a  rope  he  was  able  to  get  her  up  with 
no  worse  hurt  than  a  little  hair  rubbed  off  her  eyebrow. 

April  8  {Good  Friday). — This  afternoon  I  went  to  Beding- 
ham.  As  I  leaned  my  bicycle  against  a  post  of  the  pond 
fence,  I  noticed  that  the  shallow  edge  of  the  water  was  simply 
full  of  frogs  (some  of  them  dead)  and  spawn.  This  pond  sup- 
plies drinking-water  for  the  farm,  and  certainly  it  might  occur  to 
the  uninitiated  that  a  plentiful  flavour  of  frog  and  occasional 
globules  of  spawn  would  not  improve  its  quality  or  wholesome- 
ness.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  many  of  the  people  about  here 
absolutely  prefer  pond  to  well  water — not  superior  pond  water 
such  as  that  at  Bedingham,  which  comes  from  a  deep,  recently 
cleaned  moat,  and  is  filtered  in  a  gravel  drain,  but  thick  stuff 
from  any  little  roadside  pit-hole.  Nor  is  this  water  as  a  rule  in 
any  way  unwholesome — at  any  rate,  to  those  who  are  accustomed  to 
drink  the  stuff.  Frogs  and  ducks  and  countless  long-legged  insects 
evidently  do  not  disagree  with  man.  Of  course,  if  a  pond 
becomes  infected  with  any  disease-bacillus  it  is  another  matter ; 
for  instance,  a  year  or  two  ago  there  was  an  outbreak  of  diphtheria 
in  '  the  Parishes  '  from  this  cause.  But  the  same  danger  exists  in 
the  case  of  wells  ;  indeed,  I  would  rather  have  to  deal  with  an 
infected  pond  than  an  infected  well,  as  in  the  first  the  source  of 
the  mischief  is  more  likely  to  be  noticed  and  easier  to  remedy. 
Also  I  believe,  though  I  have  no  scientific  authority  for  the  state- 
ment, that  infected  water  which  is  exposed  to  the  air  and  sunlight 
is  much  less  likely  to  be  virulent  than  that  which  is  shut  up  in  the 
darkness  of  a  well. 

While  I  am  on  this  subject  I  will  say  that,  so  far  as  my 
observation  goes,  the  system  of  water-supply  in  villages  appears  to 
be  abominable,  and  is,  indeed,  a  question  which  should  be  taken  in 
hand  by  Parliament  or  the  County  Councils.  So  long  as  it  is  left  to 
small  communities,  and,  for  that  matter,  sometimes  to  large  ones 


136  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

also,  to  choose  between  a  good  and  bad  water-supply,  in  five 
cases  out  of  six  they  will  select  whichever  is  cheapest.  This,  I 
maintain,  they  have  no  right  to  do  ;  a  person  visiting  a  town  or 
village  ought  to  be  able  to  drink  a  glass  of  water  with  the  abso- 
lute certainty  that  it  is  pure,,  and  that  he  is  not  running  the  risk 
of  bringing  about  his  own  interment  within  three  weeks.  He 
would  be  a  bold  man,  however,  who  dared  to  travel  from  village  to 
village  in  East  Anglia  and  swallow  whatever  water  was  put  before 
him.  Indeed,  as  recent  events  show  us,  even  m  some  of  our  towns 
he  might  find  cause  to  rue  his  rashness. 

What  I  suggest,  although  it  may  not  be  practicable  everywhere, 
is  that,  in  the  case  of  villages  at  any  rate,  the  problem  could  be 
solved  at  no  great  cost.  An  artesian  or  some  other  suitable  kind 
of  boring  might  be  made  to  tap  the  water  at  a  depth  where  it  was 
not  possible  that  it  should  be  contaminated,  whence  it  could  be 
lifted  by  means  of  an  ordinary  windmill  into  tanks  large  enough 
to  hold  a  supply  of  drinking-water  sufficient  for  the  needs  of  the 
population  during  any  period  of  aerial  calm  that  was  likely  to  be 
experienced.  The  only  essentials  are  that  the  tanks  must  be  of 
ample  size,  and  that  the  windmill  should  be  powerful  enough  to 
pump  even  in  a  light  draught  of  air  ;  then,  if  its  site  were  pro- 
perly chosen,  I  do  not  believe  that  it  would  often  stand  still  for 
more  than  twenty-four  hours  at  a  spell. 

The  bullock  which  I  am  keeping  at  Bedingham  with  a  view  of 
showing  it  is  not  coming  up  to  expectations.  His  fore-quarters 
are  splendid,  but  he  falls  off  behind.  He  has  a  box  made  expressly 
for  him  in  the  barn,  but  I  believe  that  he  is  lonely  and  pines 
there ;  at  any  rate,  he  does  not  take  his  food  so  well  as  he  did. 

It  is  a  half-holiday,  as  is  usual  on  Good  Fridays  and  Christmas 
Days,  though  the  agricultural  labourer  keeps  few  others  ;  therefore 
I  found  no  one  working  on  the  farm.  The  land  looks  very  well — 
indeed,  I  never  saw  it  in  better  condition — and,  except  for  the 
rolling,  the  beet  fields  are  ready  to  drill.  The  mare,  however, 
one  of  the  pair  of  horses  which  are  left  here,  is  so  old  and  heavy 
in  foal  that  she  cannot  do  much,  so  I  have  arranged  with  Moore 


APRIL  137 

to  send  over  another  horse  with  the  drill  to  help  to  sow  the  beet 
to-morrow. 

April  w. — On  Saturday — that  is  the  day  before  yesterday — 
we  had  good  showers  of  rain.  Whitrup  harrowed  the  wheat  on 
Baker's,  No.  42,  to  drag  out  some  of  the  small  weeds  which 
swarm  upon  the  surface  of  the  land.  This  wheat,  which  was 
rather  thin  in  places,  has  improved  greatly  in  strength  and  colour 
since  it  received  a  special  compound  dressing  of  artificial  manure 
last  month. 

Yesterday,  Easter  Sunday,  came  stormy,  with  sudden  and  very 
violent  tempests  of  rain  and  wind.  In  the  course  of  my  usual 
Sunday  afternoon's  walk  round  the  farm  I  noticed  what  great 
progress  everything  has  made  during  the  last  few  days.  Fields 
that  were  bare  and  brown  are  now  clothed  in  green.  I  hear  from 
Fairhead,  who  took  over  the  horse  and  drill  to  Bedingham  on 
Saturday,  that  they  only  succeeded  in  getting  in  two  acres  of 
beet.  More,  if  not  all  of  it,  could  have  been  drilled,  but  the  land 
was  unrolled,  and  after  a  few  showers  this  soil  becomes  too  sticky 
to  admit  of  that  operation.  It  is  necessary  to  pass  the  roller  over 
the  baulks  in  order  to  flatten  their  crests  and  break  the  clods  into 
mould  before  the  drill  goes  down  them ;  but  if  this  clay  is  at  all 
sticky  it  clings  like  wax  and  clogs  the  roller.  Thus  it  often 
happens  that  although  such  a  small  volume  of  wet  has  fallen  that 
drilling  would  be  perfectly  practicable,  because  the  sharp  coulters 
of  the  machine  cut  through  the  top  crust  and  drop  the  seed  in 
the  dry  soil  beneath,  yet,  to  the  disappointment  of  the  farmer, 
who  knows  not  when  he  will  again  find  his  fields  in  suitable  con- 
dition, it  has  to  be  given  up  because  the  roller  cannot  be  used 
upon  the  land. 

To-day  I  went  down  to  the  Bath  Hills  to  watch  the  tree- 
cutting,  which  is  getting  on  well  under  the  charge  of  the  woodman 
Reeve  and  an  assistant.  This  timber-felling,  where  the  trees  are 
at  all  crowded,  is  an  operation  that  requires  great  skill  and 
judgment.     The  first  thing  the  woodman  must  do  is  to  decide  in 


138  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

which  direction  the  trunk  is  to  fall  and  the  exact  spot  of  ground 
whereon  he  desires  to  lay  it.  Very  possibly  the  state  of  the 
wind,  if  it  is  at  all  high,  will  make  it  difficult  to  do  this  with  the 
requisite  nicety,  and  in  such  case  that  tree  must  be  left  till  another 
day. 

If,  however,  there  is  no  wind,  or  the  set  of  it  seems  right,  he 
places  his  ladder  against  the  trunk,  and,  climbing  as  high  as  he  can 
go,  so  that  there  may  be  a  better  pull  and  purchase  at  the  moment 
of  the  fall,  ties  his  line  about  the  tree.  Then  he  goes  to  a  dis- 
tance and  makes  the  other  end  of  the  line,  which  is  about  thirty 
yards  long,  fast  to  the  bole  of  a  second  tree,  if  one  should  stand 
conveniently  to  his  purpose.  Should  there  be  no  tree  near  of 
sufficient  strength  to  bear  the  strain,  then  at  the  critical  moment 
the  line  must  be  held  by  men — that  is,  if  its  use  is  considered 
necessary.  The  object  of  this  rope,  I  may  state,  is  to  make  it 
sure  that  in  spite  of  other  precautions  the  tree  will  not  fall  in  a 
direction  different  to  that  intended,  thereby  causing  damage,  or 
possibly  hurt,  to  the  woodcutters ;  for  should  it  begin  to  fall  thus 
perversely,  the  slack  comes  out  of  the  rope,  which,  growing  taut 
and  rigid  as  a  bar  of  iron  when  it  takes  the  strain,  swings  the  dead 
weight  of  the  trunk  round  and  brings  it  to  the  earth  near  to  the 
place  where  it  is  desired  that  it  should  lie.  That  is,  it  does  these 
things  if  the  rope  be  strong  enough.  There  is  nothing  more 
dangerous  in  wood-cutting  than  a  weak  or  frayed  rope,  which  is 
apt  to  fly  apart  at  the  moment  of  stress.  When  the  line  is 
successfully  fastened  and  pulled  as  tight  as  one  or  two  men  can 
draw  it,  it  is  probably  considered  desirable— though  this,  of 
course,  depends  upon  the  character  of  the  '  top ' — to  saw  off  such 
of  the  branches  as  can  be  reached  with  ease  and  safety,  especially 
those  upon  that  side  to  which  the  tree  must  fall,  that  otherwise 
would  be  splintered  and  spoiled. 

Then  the  actual  felling  begins.  This  there  are  two  ways  of 
doing — one  the  careless  and  slovenly  chopping  off  of  the  tree 
above  the  level  of  the  ground,  the  other  its  scientific  'rooting.' 
In  rooting  a  timber,  the  soil  is  first  removed  from  about  the  foot 


APRIL  139 

of  the  bole  with  any  suitable  instrument  till  the  great  roots  are 
discovered  branching  this  way  and  that.  Then  the  woodmen 
begin  upon  these  with  their  mattocks,  which  sink  with  a  dull  thud 
into  the  soft  and  sappy  fibre,  first  cutting  those  of  them  that  are 
upon  the  rope  side.  When  all  which  can  be  conveniently  reached 
are  severed,  leaving  only  those  that  go  straight  down,  and  in  the 
case  of  oaks  and  some  other  trees  the  great  tap-root  which  pierces 
far  into  the  earth  beneath,  they  begin  upon  the  bole,  cutting 
it  with  hundreds  of  strokes,  none  of  them  delivered  with  very 
great  force,  and  to  the  eye  of  the  careless  observer  apparently 
aimed  at  random,  which  ends  in  shaping  it  to  the  form  of  a  pear, 
the  stalk  of  the  pear  being  represented  by  the  tap-root  and  the 
portion  of  timber  that  still  remains  above. 

I  remember  a  curious  incident  connected  with  the  tap-root  of 
an  oak.  This  oak,  a  good  tree  of  perhaps  two  hundred  years' 
growth,  was  being  felled  in  Bradenham  Wood,  in  this  county, 
when  the  woodmen  called  attention  to  something  peculiar  on  the 
tap-root.  On  clearing  it  of  soil,  we  found  that  the  object  was  a 
horse-shoe  of  ancient  make.  Obviously  in  the  beginning  an  acorn 
must  have  fallen  into  the  hollow  of  this  cast  shoe,  and  as  it 
grew  through  the  slow  generations  the  root  filled  up  the  circle, 
carrying  it  down  into  the  earth  in  the  process  of  its  increase, 
till  at  length  we  found  wood  and  iron  thus  strangely  wedded. 
That  tap-root  with  the  shoe  about  it  is  now,  or  used  to  be,  a 
paper-weight  in  the  vestibule  at  Bradenham  Hall. 

It  is  curious  to  notice  the  changes  in  the  colour  of  the  wood 
as  its  separate  layers  are  cut  through.  First  there  is  the  pink  hue 
of  the  bark  and  the  membrane  beneath  it,  then  comes  the  white 
of  the  outer  wood,  which  in  the  case  of  oak  we  call  '  sap,'  and 
lastly  the  dark-coloured  heart  of  oak.  When  the  cutting  has  gone 
so  deep  that  the  shape  of  the  bole  approaches  to  that  of  a  peg-top, 
the  woodmen  go  to  the  end  of  the  rope  and  pull  upon  it.  Prob- 
ably the  tree  makes  no  sign,  but,  with  the  exception  of  an 
occasional  slight  quiver  as  though  of  fear,  which  causes  the  twigs 
to  tremble  to  their  tips,  stands  as  proud  and  upright  as  it  has  stood 


I40  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

for  the  last  century  or  more.  Thereupon  one  of  the  men  remarks 
to  his  mate  that  *  she  wants  a  chip  or  two  off  the  hinder  side,' 
and  then  comes  another  five  minutes  of  quiet  and  scientific  chop- 
ping, followed  by  a  return  to  the  end  of  the  rope.  At  about 
the  third  tug  the  observer  will  notice  the  topmost  twigs  of  the 
timber  bend  themselves  with  a  sudden  curve,  not  unlike  that  of  the 
top  joint  of  a  rod  when  a  trout  first  takes  the  fly.  At  the  next 
pull  the  curve  is  more  sudden,  and  deeper.  Now  the  great  tree 
begins  to  groan  and  rock,  and  its  boughs,  rushing  to  and  fro,  to  flog 
the  air  in  wide  sweeps,  but  still  with  a  desperate  tenacity  the  thin 
neck  of  wood  and  the  remaining  rope  of  root  keep  it  from  falling. 

'  She's  a-coming,'  says  the  head  woodman ;  *  now,  togither,  lad, 
togither.'  Two  more  pulls  and  the  doomed  tree  swings  so  far 
that  it  cannot  recover  its  upright  position.  For  a  moment  it  hangs 
trembling,  as  though  making  obeisance  to  its  murderers ;  then — 
a  swift  rush,  a  sound  of  wood  rending  and  of  tough  roots  flying  apart 
with  a  noise  like  that  of  pistol  shots,  and  down  it  tumbles  to 
the  earth  with  a  thunderous  rattling  crash  that  echoes  through  the 
wood  and  dies  far  away  upon  the  breast  of  the  quiet  river. 

It  is  done,  and  a  change  has  come  over  the  landscape ;  the 
space  that  for  generations  has  been  filled  with  leafy  branches  is 
now  white  and  empty  air.  I  know  of  no  more  melancholy  sight — • 
indeed,  to  this  day  I  detest  seeing  a  tree  felled  ;  it  always  reminds 
me  of  the  sudden  and  violent  death  of  a  man  I  fancy  it  must  be 
the  age  of  timbers  that  inspires  us  with  this  respect  and  sympathy, 
which  we  do  not  feel  for  a  sapling  or  a  flower. 

While  I  was  on  the  hills  this  morning  an  oak  was  felled  that 
from  its  girth  and  general  appearance  I  should  say  had  been 
growing  for  at  least  a  century.  The  curious  thing  about  this  tree 
was  that  when  we  were  cutting  it  down  we  discovered  that  in  the 
beginning  it  had  sprung  from  the  stump  of  another  oak  which 
stood  there  before  it,  and  had  in  its  day  been  felled  by  long-dead 
woodmen.  Unskilful  or  careless  hands  they  were  also,  for,  as 
that  portion  of  the  stub  which  was  incorporated  and  overgrown 
by  the  bole  of  the  present  tree  showed,  they  had  not  '  rooted ' 


APRIL  141 

their  timber,  but  hacked  it  off  level  with  the  ground.  Perhaps, 
however,  they  did  this  in  order  to  cause  it  to  throw  up  a  bush  of 
undergrowth.  At  least  that  is  what  must  have  happened,  and 
afterwards,  on  the  occasions  of  successive  cuttings  of  the  fell, 
gradually  the  growths  were  thinned  out  to  a  single  sapling,  which, 
spared  from  decade  to  decade,  went  on  until  at  last  it  became  a 
timber. 

What  interests  me  in  this  tree  is  that  I  had  no  idea  a  stub  oak 
— that  is  to  say,  an  oak  growing  upon  roots  which  have  done  duty 
for  a  predecessor — would  increase  to  such  a  size.  I  knew  that 
it  is  quite  possible  and  a  common  practice  to  re-grow  blue-gums 
in  this  fashion,  the  child  tree  becoming  as  large  and  as  vigorous 
as  its  parent,  but  that  the  oak  would  succeed  even  to  a  moderate 
extent  under  such  treatment  was  new  to  me. 

The  ways  of  trees,  however,  are  often  very  curious.  Thus, 
last  autumn,  when  shooting  on  the  Ditchingham  Hall  estate,  I  saw 
with  regret  that  a  great  bough  had  been  torn  off  a  famous  beech 
which  grows  there.  Going  to  examine  it,  I  found  that  the  first  frac- 
ture was  of  ancient  standing,  but  that  to  support  and  nurture  itself 
the  injured  bough  had  put  out  roots  from  its  torn  surface,  some 
of  them  as  much  as  an  inch  in  diameter,  which  were  feeding  on 
the  leaf  mould  and  decayed  wood  collected  in  a  fork  below  the 
break.  I  have  frequently  seen  this  kind  of  aerial  root  emission 
in  the  case  of  tropical  trees,  especially  in  the  tierra  caliente  of 
Mexico,  but  never  before  in  trees  of  English  growth  ;  although  it  is 
common  enough  to  find  one  seedling  tree  flourishing  upon  another 
of  a  different  variety,  sometimes  indeed  growing  to  a  respectable  size. 

To-day  we  have  been  harrowing  the  three-acre  new  pasture, 
No.  II,  and  sowing  on  it  a  good  coat  of  clover  seed  saved  from 
that  which  I  grew  at  Bedingham  last  year.  This  is  the  process  : 
Fairhead,  with  the  new  steel  chain-drag  set  to  cut  its  deepest, 
harrows  the  pasture  crossways,  to  scatter  as  evenly  as  possible  the 
'  tether '  left  by  the  sheep,  which,  it  will  be  remembered,  have  been 
penned  upon  this  field,  and  to  disturb  any  moss  that  may  remain 
after  their  treading.     Even  this  harrowing  requires  care,  since  the 


142  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

triangular  knobs  of  steel  are  apt  to  be  clogged  with  bits  of  stick 
and  rubbish,  and  occasionally  must  be  cleared  by  lifting,  or  now 
and  again  by  turning,  the  chain  fabric.  Before  the  harrow  walks 
Buck  with  a  basket  full  of  seed  strapped  on  his  breast.  He 
goes  to  and  fro  across  the  meadow  scattering  the  clover  seed  with 
which  it  is  to  be  refreshed,  about  a  peck  and  a  half  of  it  to  the 
acre.  The  method  is  very  neat  and  pretty.  Grasping  handfuls 
of  seed  first  with  the  right  and  then  with  the  left  hand,  by  alter- 
nate motions  of  his  arms  he  casts  them  in  a  fine  shower  so  that 
each  handful  is  spread  evenly  over  a  certain  space  of  ground  in 
front  of  him.  Watching  him,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  his  farming 
education  began  before  the  day  of  drills.  I  doubt  whether  a  man 
of  the  present  generation  could  perform  this  task  with  half  his 
nicety,  as  I  understand  that  the  necessary  evenness  of  spread 
depends  upon  the  exact  force  of  the  swing  of  the  arm  and  the 
loosening  in  its  proper  order  of  the  grip  of  each  finger  upon  the 
seed.  When  the  pasture  has  been  harrowed  transversely  it  is 
again  harrowed  lengthwise,  thereby  burying  the  seed.  After  this 
it  only  remains  to  roll  it  and  leave  the  issue  to  the  kindly  in- 
fluences of  Spring. 

Last  night  we  had  a  tragedy.  The  sheep,  having  finished 
No.  II,  were  penned  upon  a  little  stretch  of  grass  (not  more 
than  an  acre  in  extent)  that  is  separated  from  it  by  a  fence  which 
it  is  proposed  to  remove,  laying  drainage  pipes  in  the  ditch  and 
filling  it  up,  so  soon  as  we  can  find  time  for  the  task.  I  must 
explain  that  among  the  movable  hurdles,  which  are  of  iron  and 
mounted  upon  wheels,  is  what  is  known  as  a  lamb-hurdle — that  is, 
an  ingenious  contrivance  fitted  with  rollers  set  horizontally,  too 
narrow  to  admit  of  the  passage  of  ewes,  but  large  enough  to  allow 
the  lambs  to  pass  in  and  out  of  the  fold,  as  they  do  not  grow  well 
if  kept  constantly  confined  with  their  mothers.  Doubtless  some 
of  these  wandered  out  in  the  darkness,  and  while  they  were  thus 
away  from  the  ewes,  that  could  not  go  to  protect  them — as  they 
will  do  with  great  courage  if  free — were  attacked  by  a  dog  or  dogs. 
The  ravening  brute,  or  brutes,  seized  one  of  the  lambs — the  finest 


APRIL  r43 

that  1  have — and  murdered  it.  In  the  morning  it  was  found 
lying  in  the  holl,  its  throat  torn  completely  out  and  half  the  head 
eaten,  a  dreadful  and  a  piteous  sight. 

Another  lamb  was  also  badly  bitten  in  the  leg,  but  managed 
to  escape  back  into  the  fold.  Both  of  these  had  been  sold  to  the 
butcher  for  twenty-nine  shillings  each,  on  the  understanding  that  he 
was  to  take  them  when  it  suited  him  ;  but  as  they  had  not  been 
delivered,  of  course  I  am  liable  for  the  loss. 

The  discovery  of  what  had  happened  filled  Hood  and  myself 
with  consternation,  not  so  much  on  account  of  the  actual  damage 
as  from  fear  of  what  might  come.  It  is  well  known  that  when 
once  a  dog  takes  to  this  dreadful  practice  of  lamb-killing  he  will 
often  travel  great  distances,  and  show  the  most  extraordinary 
cunning,  in  order  to  gratify  his  appetite.  I  believe  it  to  be  hope- 
less to  attempt  to  break  any  brute  that  has  acquired  this  habit ; 
for  him  there  is  only  one  cure,  a  rope,  and  Tusser,  who  farmed  in 
this  country,  was  of  the  same  opinion  three  hundred  years  ago, 
vide  his  '  March  Husbandry ' : 

Of  mastiffs  and  mongrels  that  many  we  see, 
A  number  of  thousands  too  many  there  be. 
Watch  therefore  in  Lent,  to  thy  sheep  go  and  look, 
For  dogs  will  have  victuals  by  hook  or  by  crook. 

Such  hounds,  however,  hunt  only  in  the  dark  ;  they  know  better 
than  to  work  their  crimes  in  the  light  of  day ;  therefore  it  is 
generally  difficult,  if  not  irnpossible,  to  identify  them.  To-night 
we  have  arranged  to  set  a  watch  of  men  armed  with  guns,  one  to 
be  relieved  by  the  other  at  midnight ;  but,  even  if  the  dog  should 
not  catch  their  wind  and  take  warning,  as  there  is  no  moon  I  very 
much  doubt  whether  they  will  be  able  to  see  him. 

Worse  however  than  the  ravening  dog  even  is  the  wandering  stag 
that  has  baffled  the  pack  and  is  outlying  in  the  woods.  Such 
animals  seek  the  company  of  in-lamb  ewes  at  night,  to  sport  with 
them  as  I  suppose.  But  the  ewes  do  not  appreciate  the  game ; 
perhaps  sheep  are  superstitious,  and  in  their  innocent  minds  the 
visitor's  great  horns,  that  tail,  those  cloven  hoofs,  all  point  to  one 


144  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

conclusion.  At  any  rate,  round  and  round  the  fold  they  tear  in 
terror,  and  when  the  lambs  are  born  they  come  deformed  and  with 
twisted  heads.  Twice  in  this  neighbourhood  have  I  heard  of  great 
loss  of  lambs  from  this  cause,  once  quite  recently,  where,  as  I  was 
told,  nearly  half  of  the  total  number  perished.  Little  wonder,  then, 
that  shepherds  fear  the  visit  of  a  lonely  stag. 

To-day  being  Easter  Monday,  the  annual  Vestry  Meeting  was 
held  in  the  church  at  seven  in  the  evening.  It  has  now  been  my 
lot,  as  people's  churchwarden  of  this  parish,  to  attend  a  great 
humber  of  these  Easter-Monday  Vestries.  The  similarity  between 
the  proceedings  in  different  years  is  really  remarkable,  although 
once  I  remember,  when  there  was  some  question  of  accounts 
which  excited  popular  interest,  the  place  was  crowded.  The 
average  attendance,  however,  runs  from  six  to  nine,  including  the 
clergyman,  the  churchwardens,  the  clerk,  and  the  organ-blower, 
which  cannot  be  called  excessive  out  of  a  population  of  about 
eleven  hundred.  The  fact  is  that,  although  they  are  far  more 
truly  democratic  than  the  Parish  Council,  since  in  them  every 
parishioner  can  say  his  say  and  exercise  his  rights  of  voting,  such 
as  they  may  be,  nobody  takes  the  slightest  interest  in  vestry 
meetings,  or  the  trouble  to  walk  a  yard  to  be  present  at  them. 

The  procedure  is  simple.  When  a  quorum  is  present  in  the 
exceedingly  cold  vestry,  which  is  lit  by  one  of  the  dazzling  church 
lamps,  the  Rector  takes  the  chair  and  reads  the  minutes  of  the 
last  year's  meeting.  Then,  the  church  accounts  having  been 
produced,  and  the  normal  deficit  sighed  over,  some  gentleman 
present,  in  earnest  tones,  proposes  the  re-election  of  the  people's 
churchwarden.  Another  gentleman  seconds  it,  and  the  people's 
churchwarden,  duly  re-elected,  responds  with  an  emotion  befitting 
the  occasion,  wondering  in  his  heart  how  much  he  will  be  expected 
to  advance  on  account  of  the  church  coals  during  the  coming 
winter.  Then  the  Rector  nominates  his  churchwarden,  who  is 
also  re-elected,  and  after  a  long  and  rather  desultory  conversation, 
generally  about  insurance  or  lightning  conductors,  that  meeting  is 
gathered  to  its  fathers. 


APRIL  145 

April  12. — Hood,  who  has  been  suffering  from  a  cold  upon  his 
chest,  is  this  morning  absolutely  set  fast  with  lumbago,  so  that  he 
can  scarcely  stir  hand  or  foot,  the  result  of  neglecting  his  first 
ailment.  Luckily  he  has  a  most  worthy  and  capable  wife,  for  he 
is  not  a  man  who  takes  care  of  himself 

Our  watch  for  the  dog  last  night  proved  unavailing.  Just  as 
the  darkness  was  finally  closing  in,  Fairhead  declares  that  he  saw 
it — a  long,  dark-coloured  animal,  which  came  through  the  iron 
gates  of  the  right-of-way,  and  advanced  towards  the  fold.  On 
winding  him,  however,  for  it  could  not  have  seen  him  where  he 
stood  in  the  doorway  of  the  shepherd's  hut,  it  turned  and  fled, 
thereby  showing  how  guilty  was  its  conscience.  Unfortunately,  at 
the  time  he  had  not  the  gun  with  him,  and  the  dog  put  in  no 
further  appearance  that  night,  or,  if  he  did,  it  was  too  dark  to 
see  him. 

Towards  daybreak  the  mare  Scot  foaled,  a  '  fine  upstanding 
foal,'  as  they  say  here.  This  morning  I  found  Fairhead  rolling 
the  new  pasture.  No.  10,  in  the  heavy  rain.  One  of  the  oldest 
and  quietest  horses  on  the  farm  was  dragging  the  wooden  roller, 
but  when  it  saw  me  advancing  upon  it  beneath  an  umbrella  it  took 
fright,  and  nearly  precipitated  itself  and  the  roller  into  the  ditch. 
Sensible  as  they  are,  farm-horses  draw  the  line  at  umbrellas,  to 
which  they  are  unaccustomed.  When  he  had  finished  the  rolling, 
I  went  with  Fairhead  to  see  the  foal.  Undoing  the  door  of  the 
box,  he  entered  it,  still  wearing  his  wet  military  greatcoat ;  where- 
upon the  mare,  although  he  called  out  at  her,  laid  back  her  ears 
and  drew  up  her  lips.  Indeed,  she  looked  very  nasty,  and  I 
thought  that  she  meant  to  attack  him,  an  opinion  which  Fairhead 
shared,  for  he  got  out  of  the  box  as  quickly  as  he  could.  Remark- 
ing that  he  had  never  known  her  behave  like  this  before,  he  tried 
to  re-enter,  with  the  same  result.  Then  the  solution  of  the  mystery 
struck  him. 

'She  don't  know  me  in  this  here  coat,'  he  said,  'and  can't 
smell  me  through  it ' ;  and,  pulling  it  off,  he  went  into  the  box 

L 


146  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

boldly.  The  mare  thrust  out  her  head  and  sniffed,  then  she 
literally  seemed  'to  smile  all  over,'  as  the  Americans  say,  and 
made  no  further  attempt  to  interfere  with  him,  even  when  he 
caught  hold  of  the  foal  and  dragged  it  on  to  its  legs.  Two  or 
three  years  ago  a  change  of  the  stockman's  clothes  resulted  in  a 
tragedy  in  this  neighbourhood.  My  friend  Mr.  Henry  Smith,  the 
squire  of  Ellingham,  had  a  bailiff  named  Bensely.  Also  he  had  a 
very  savage  bull.  This  bull  was  turned  out  on  a  marsh,  where  it 
could  injure  no  one,  but  Bensely,  unhappily  for  himself,  went  to 
look  at  it  after  church  or  chapel,  dressed  in  his  Sunday  best. 
The  bull  did  not  know  its  attendant  in  this  attire,  and  attacked  him 
so  that  the  poor  man  was  found  dead  in  a  dyke.  His  actual  death, 
however,  was,  I  believe,  due  not  to  his  injuries,  but  to  terror  acting 
on  a  diseased  heart. 

New-born  Pride,  our  oldest,  and  once  our  best,  cow — she  is 
about  twenty — also  calved  last  night,  for  the  animals  seem  to  be 
taking  the  opportunity  of  Hood's  indisposition  to  hurry  their 
offspring  into  the  world  at  as  inconvenient  a  time  as  possible.  I 
am  glad  to  say  that  her  calf  is  a  heifer,  the  second  only  out  of  all 
the  number  that  she  has  given  us.  She  is  so  old  that  probably 
she  will  be  sold  out  before  she  calves  again,  so  I  want  to  keep  as 
much  of  her  stock  as  possible,  for  she  is  a  magnificent  stamp  of 
cow,  long  and  broad  and  low,  possessing  that  size  which  many 
red-polls  lack.  Her  other  heifer  calf  is  now  a  member  of  the 
herd,  with  a  calf  of  her  own,  and  promises  very  well. 

To-day,  as  I  was  walking  by,  I  noticed  great  flocks  of  sparrows 
and  starlings  on  the  three-acre  pasture.  Doubtless  they  are  busy 
devouring  as  much  of  the  clover  seed  sown  yesterday  as  they  can 
find,  but  I  hope  that  enough  will  escape  them  to  serve  our 
purpose. 

April  13. — This  has  been  a  sad  day  for  the  lambs,  for  on  it 
they  have  made  their  first  acquaintance  with  the  terrors  of  exist- 
ence under  our  present  dire  carnivorous  system,  wanting  which,  by 
the  way,  they  would  never  have  lived  at   all.     About   breakfast 


APRIL  147 

time  all  the  flock,  sheep  and  lambs  together,  were  driven  into  the 
All  Hallows  barn,  and  the  farrier  arrived  in  a  cart  as  per  appoint- 
ment. Half  the  barn  was  hurdled  off,  and  behind  the  hurdles 
the  mob  of  them  stood  wondering.  Then,  with  the  assistance  of 
various  boys  who  always  assemble  upon  such  an  occasion,  very 
much  as  in  Africa  I  have  seen  the  vultures,  led  by  instinct,  gather 
together  round  wounded  game,  the  ewes  and  those  of  the  lambs 
upon  which,  as  the  fattest  and  finest,  the  butcher  had  already  set 
his  seal,  amidst  a  frantic  baa-ing  and  confusion,  were  one  by  one 
ejected  through  a  hurdle  hinged  by  means  of  a  rope  and  stood  ajar. 
Out  they  rushed,  all  of  them  knocking  their  shins  against 
the  weather-board  of  the  door,  and  leaving  behind  them  the  little 
mob  of  doomed  lambkins.  Then  the  veterinary,  who,  should  he 
ever  peruse  these  lines,  will,  I  trust,  not  be  offended  if  I  describe 
him  as  a  peculiarly  skilful  and  benevolent-looking  young  gentle- 
man, said  in  a  soft  and  sympathetic  voice,  'Small  ones  first, 
please.' 

So  a  '  small  one '  was  procured  by  an  eager  youth  and  presented 
to  the  surgeon  with  its  ears  drooped  and  its  tail  pointing  to  the 
skies,  which  tail  he  felt  in  a  contemplative  and  almost  dreamy 
fashion,  as  though  he  were  sampling  a  piece  of  cloth.  Still  in  the 
same  mild  voice,  he  asked  for  the  '  large  knife,  please,'  and  it  was 
handed  to  him,  a  formidable-looking  weapon.  Next  there  was  a 
single  swift  and  adroit  motion  of  the  arm  and  off  flew  about  six 
inches  of  tail.  This  was  the  beginning  of  a  perfect  saturnalia  of 
tail-cutting  and  other  operations,  at  which,  as  the  sight  was  not 
agreeable,  I  did  not  long  assist. 

About  a  couple  of  hours  later,  however,  the  whole  flock  re- 
appeared on  the  back  lawn  ;  but  now — those  that  were  marked  for 
the  butcher  and  rejoiced  prematurely  excepted — there  was  little 
of  their  playful  skip  left  in  the  unfortunate  lambs.  They  lay 
about  in  knots  or  singly,  for  they  were  too  stiff  to  walk,  but  I 
noticed  that  some  of  them  nibbled  such  grass  as  they  could  reach. 
I  hope  that  they  may  soon  recover,  though,  myself,  I  believe  that 
all  this  cutting  about  has  been  put  off  too  late.     However,  the 

L  2 


148  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

season  has  been  so  cold  that  it  was  not  considered  advisable  to 
attempt  it  before. 

On  the  farm  we  have  been  baulk-splitting,  manure-carting, 
layer-rolling,  and  ploughing. 

April  14. — My  fears  were  not  without  foundation.  Last  night 
the  sheep  were  shut  up  in  the  barn  to  protect  them  from  the  cold 
after  the  operation,  and  also  from  the  power  of  the  Bath  Hills 
dog.  This  morning  one  of  the  lambs — of  course  the  finest — was 
found  bled  to  death.  Later  in  the  day  they  were  turned  out  upon 
the  front  lawn,  when  I  noticed  that  many  of  the  poor  things  went 
very  lame. 

As,  although  dull,  it  was  not  actually  raining,  we  drilled  between 
three  and  four  acres  of  beet  on  All  Hallows,  No.  29,  a  portion  of 
this  field,  that  nearest  the  fence,  being  reserved  for  swedes  and 
white  turnips.  The  land  was  rather  sticky,  but  on  the  whole  the 
seed  went  in  well. 

The  process  of  root  drilling  is  different  from  that  of  sowing 
corn.  First  a  roll  drawn  by  one  horse  is  passed  over  the  land, 
covering  four  baulks  at  each  journey.  Then  comes  the  root  drill, 
also  drawn  by  one  horse  and  fitted  with  three  coulters  only,  each 
of  which  pierces  the  centre  of  a  baulk.  Another  roll  passed  over 
the  baulks  after  the  drill  has  done  its  work  completes  the  opera- 
tion. We  make  it  a  practice  to  mix  a  little  cabbage  seed  with 
that  of  the  beet.  Formerly  we  used  to  grow  the  cabbage  by  itself, 
but  experience  has  shown  us  that  if  sown  amongst  the  beet  the 
'  fly '  and  other  destructive  insects  seem  much  more  likely  to 
overlook  it.  During  the  last  year  or  two,  by  following  this  system, 
we  have  raised  a  quantity  of  splendid  cabbages,  which  are  cut  as 
occasion  requires,  either  before  the  beet  is  drawn  or  after  it,  and 
thrown  to  the  cattle  on  the  pastures  when  the  grass  becomes  too 
sparse  and  innutritious  to  support  them.  This  cow-cabbage,  by 
the  way,  which  has  an  enormous  white  heart,  is,  if  properly  boiled, 
quite  suitable  for  table  purposes  —much  better,  indeed,  than  many 
of  the  obnoxious  vegetables,  to  my  mind,  known  to  gardeners  as 


APRIL  149 

*  winter  greens.'     1  tried  it   several  times  last  winter  and  found 
it  excellent. 

To-day  I  saw  the  first  swallow ;  it  looked  very  cold,  and 
certainly  does  not  make  a  summer. 

April  15. — This  morning  some  rain  fell,  after  which  the 
weather  became  fine  and  springlike,  causing  everything  to  grow  so 
fast  that  one  can  almost  see  the  increase.  To-day  we  are  plough- 
ing and  manure-carting  on  to  the  eleven-acre  at  Baker's,  No.  44, 
which  is  being  prepared  for  mangolds  and  swedes.  The  clover 
layer  on  half  of  the  All  Hallows  ten-acre,  No.  37,  is  getting  quite 
thick  and  high.  The  wheat  on  Baker's,  No.  42,  is  also  improving 
very  much,  as  the  dressing  of  artificial  manure  continues  to  tell 
upon  it.  It  is,  however,  full  of  docks,  which  is  not  greatly  to  be 
wondered  at,  seeing  that  the  ploughman,  Whitrup,  tells  me  that 
my  predecessor  as  tenant  of  this  land,  except  at  haysel  and 
harvest,  employed  only  three  men  on  the  1 50  acres  that  he  farm-ed, 
a  force  which  would  not  leave  any  spare  hands  for  dock  pulling. 
I  think  that  the  most  frequent  cause  of  the  ruin  of  tenant-farmers 
is  their  wild  attempt  to  work  twice  as  much  land  as  they  have 
capital  to  stock.  It  can  end  only  one  way,  for  the  land  will  not 
grow  two  crops.  Sooner  or  later  the  weeds  get  the  mastery,  and 
then — the  bank  forecloses. 

Fairhead  is  engaged  in  harrowing  the  pastures  on  either  side 
of  the  Lodge  drive  which  runs  beneath  the  shelter  of  the  Vineyard 
Hills.  The  grass  here,  at  least  under  the  slope,  is  somewhat  coarse, 
owing  to  the  damp  and  occasional  floods  from  the  river,  but  affords 
useful  feed  because,  lying  so  warm,  it  springs  early.  It  is  however, 
very  difficult  to  cut  with  the  mowing-machine  on  account  of  the 
little  stones  thrown  up  by  the  moles,  which  frequent  this  place 
in  great  numbers.  Let  the  driver  of  the  machine  take  what  care 
he  will,  these  stones  are  apt  to  get  into  the  teeth  of  the  knife  and 
jag  or  break  them. 

Though  he  is  still  a  sorry  spectacle.  Hood's  lumbago  is  a  little 
better ;  but  one  of  the  ewes,  I  fancy  the  mother  of  the  lamb  that 


r5o  A   FARMER'S   YEAR 

died,  is  queer,  and  two  more  lambs  are  very  ill.  Most  of  these 
poor  creatures  are  so  stiff  that  when  once  they  lie  down  they  do 
not  seem  to  care  to  get  up  again.  Thus,  as  they  neglect  to  run 
to  their  mothers  to  suck,  naturally  they  lose  strength,  till  at  length 
in  the  worst  instances  they  sink  beyond  recovery  and  die.  The 
veterinary  has  inspected  them,  but  can  only  shake  his  head  and  say 
that  although  every  possible  care  had  been  taken,  as  was  indeed  the 
case,  undoubtedly  the  cutting  about  was  done  when  the  lambs 
were  too  old.  I  quite  agree  with  him  ;  but  it  is  only  another 
instance  of  how,  in  trying  to  escape  one  danger,  we  may  fall  into 
a  worse.  Another  year,  be  it  hot  or  cold,  off  go  the  lambs'  tails 
before  they  have  seen  out  three  weeks. 

The  cattle  at  Baker's  seem  to  have  got  over  their  ailments  for 
the  present,  and  are  growing  into  fine  beasts,  as  they  ought,  con- 
sidering the  amounts  of  corn,  cake,  and  root  that  vanish  down 
their  capacious  gullets.  The  beet  clamps,  indeed,  are  melting  very 
fast ;  at  the  beginning  of  winter  it  looked  as  though  it  would  be 
impossible  for  any  number  of  cattle  which  we  could  keep  to  devour 
the  contents  of  those  scores  of  yards  of  hales  before  the  summer 
came  again.  Now  it  is  clear  that  this  was  a  mistake,  for  we  have 
many  mouths  to  feed,  considering  the  size  of  the  place,  most 
of  which  get  hungrier  as  they  grow.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to 
imagine  what  our  forefathers  did  before  root  culture  was  intro- 
duced. I  suppose  that  they  never  attempted  to  fat  beef  in  winter, 
but  were  content  to  keep  it  in  store  condition  by  the  help  of 
hay.  I  think  it  was  my  friend,  Mr.  John  Cordy  Jeaffreson,  who 
told  me  that  in  his  father's  time  in  Suffolk  the  meat  for  the 
winter's  consumption  of  a  house  was  always  salted  down  from 
the  beasts  killed  in  autumn,  which  had  grown  fat  on  the  summer 
pastures. 

To-day  I  heard  the  first  nightingale  on  Hollow  Hill.  Ever 
since  I  have  known  this  place,  and,  as  I  am  told,  for  generations 
before  I  knew  it,  nightingales  have  frequented  that  spot.  A  little 
plantation  grows  in  what  was  no  doubt  an  ancient  clay  or  marl 
pit,    through  which   the   Norwich  road  now  runs,  and  here  two 


APRIL  151 

couples  of  these  sweet-tongued  birds  build  year  by  year.  It  is  a 
very  public  place,  but  they  do  not  mind  that  in  the  least ;  indeed 
if  you  stand  in  the  road  they  will  often  sit  and  trill  within  a  few 
feet  of  your  head,  as  though  they  knew  that  you  appreciated  their 
music  and  that  they  were  singing  to  you.  I  should  have  thought, 
however,  that  the  boys  who  break  in  and  steal  their  eggs  would  have 
frightened  them  away  ;  but  fortunately  the  nests  of  nightingales  are 
very  difficult  to  find,  so  possibly  they  escape. 

April  20. — There  is  not  much  to  record  since  last  Friday. 
On  Saturday  we  had  a  heavy  shower  in  the  evening,  and  two  more 
lambs  died  from  the  effects  of  the  cutting.  Sunday  was  a  lovely 
day,  and  another  lamb  died.  While  I  was  in  church  on  that 
morning  an  incident  occurred  which  shows  how  varied  are  the 
duties  of  a  country  magistrate. 

As  I  chance  to  be  one  of  the  justices  nominated  to  exercise 
the  powers  conferred  by  the  Lunacy  Acts,  I  am  brought  a  good 
deal  into  contact  with  the  insanity  of  this  district,  which,  by  the 
way,  seems  to  be  greatly  on  the  increase  and  to  occur  chiefly 
among  women.  About  breakfast-time  on  Sunday  morning  I  was 
requested  by  an  overseer  to  attend  in  a  neighbouring  village  to 
satisfy  myself  by  personal  examination  as  to  the  madness  of  a  certain 
pauper  lunatic  before  she  was  removed  to  the  asylum.  This  I 
promised  to  do,  fixing  the  hour  of  two  o'clock.  In  the  middle 
of  the  service,  however,  on  returning  from  the  lectern  after  reading 
one  of  the  Lessons,  I  found  a  young  man  by  my  pew  with  a  note, 
on  which  was  written,  '  Lunatic  waiting  for  you  at  church  gate. 
Sir,  please  come  and  examine.' 

Accordingly,  as  I  judged  that  the  case  must  have  become 
urgent,  I  went  to  investigate  the  condition  of  the  poor  woman's 
mind  by  means  of  a  tite-a-tite  with  her  in  a  fly  at  the  gate  of  the 
churchyard.  Having  satisfied  myself  as  to  her  insanity,  I  signed 
the  orders  necessary  for  her  removal  to  the  asylum,  and  reappeared 
in  church  before  the  conclusion  of  the  Litany.  It  seems  that  it 
was  not  considered  advisable  that  the  patient  should  remain  longer 


iS2  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

out  of  proper  control ;  so,  as  she  could  not  be  removed  without  a 
magistrate's  order,  I  was  followed  to  the  church. 

On  Monday  the  second  lamb  that  the  dog  bit — by  the  way, 
that  brute  has  not  troubled  us  again — died  of  mortification,  so 
that  up  to  the  present  our  total  loss  is  six.  Yesterday  there  was 
a  cold  east  wind,  which,  however,  was  favourable  for  the  beet 
drilling  and  harrowing.  To-day  I  went  to  Norwich  to  open  a 
great  missionary  bazaar  in  the  Agricultural  Hall,  where  the  at- 
tendance was  surprisingly  large.  Many  of  the  exhibits  were  very 
interesting  indeed,  especially  the  models  of  Eastern  houses  and 
of  Jerusalem  as  it  existed  in  the  time  of  our  Lord.  There  was 
also  a  first-class  collection  of  African  fetishes,  jujus,  and  miscel- 
laneous assorted  gods,  some  of  the  holiest  being  represented  by 
cowrie-shells  fashioned  to  the  shape  of  a  cone.  I  wonder  if  there 
is  any  connection  between  this  and  the  cone  that  was  always  a 
feature  in  the  Phoenician  worship.  But  that  subject  is  too  large 
to  go  into  here.  I  wish  that  someone  would  write  an  adequate 
book  upon  superstition  and  its  effects,  as  distinguished  from  and 
opposed  to  revealed  religion  and  its  effects.  This  curse  of  the 
world,  civilised  or  savage,  deserves  a  worthy  chronicler.  Walking 
round  the  exhibits  in  the  Agricultural  Hall  to-day,  it  was  borne 
in  to  my  mind  that  superstition  in  all  its  hideous  phases  is  perhaps 
the  most  concrete  and  tangible  form  in  which  the  Evil  One  mani- 
fests himself  upon  earth,  and  I  think  that  those  who  have  mixed 
much  with  native  races  will  not  disagree  with  me.  Here  is  an 
instance  of  its  working,  which  has  just  come  to  my  notice. 

Not  long  ago  two  Matabeles  were  tried  at  Bulawayo  for  the 
murder  of  their  grandson,  an  infant  of  two.  Poison  having  failed, 
the  boy  was  held  beneath  the  water  and  drowned.  The  crime  was 
admitted,  but  the  defence  raised  was  that  the  child  had  cut  its  top 
teeth  first.  Such  children  being  unlucky  and  the  cause  of  ill-luck 
to  others,  it  was  customary  to  kill  them,  and  a  *  witch  doctor '  on 
being  consulted  had  ordered  that  this  one  should  be  put  to  death  ! 

Well,  only  a  century  or  so  since  we  did  things  almost  as  bad 
in  England,    and  I  am  told   that   to-day,  in    London,  societies 


APRIL  153 

exist  composed  of  educated  men  who  devote  themselves  to  the 
practice  of  a  black  art  of  the  mediaeval  *  Ingoldsby  Legends '  pattern, 
such  as  aims  at  calling  injury  and  doom  upon  obnoxious  persons 
by  the  fashioning  of  images  of  wax  into  which  the  instructed 
thrust  pins  fortified  with  appropriate  curses  and  invocations. 

Indeed,  if  one  may  judge  from  the  records  of  coroners'  inquests 
which  appear  in  the  papers,  all  this  mischievous  mystery-mongering 
is  on  the  increase.  Thus  I  have  a  paper  before  me,  from  which  it 
seems  that  the  victim,  a  middle-aged  woman,  was  frightened 
into  committing  suicide  by  a  fortune-teller  who  prophesied 
troubles  to  her.  I  remember  also  seeing  a  report  a  while  ago 
which  stated  that  the  deceased,  a  young  girl,  killed  herself  because 
she  had  been  told  by  some  seer  that  she  was  under  the  influence 
of  the  planet  Saturn,  a  malevolent  orb,  which  would  certainly  bring 
evil  upon  her.  In  this  instance  also  the  prophecy  achieved  its  own 
fulfilment,  and  some  astrologer  or  palmist  walks  the  world  to-day 
with  that  woman's  blood  upon  his  head.  In  short,  in  such  matters, 
humanity,  its  vast  advances  notwithstanding,  reverts  continually  to 
the  primitive  type,  and  the  myths  of  ancient  Chaldaea  and 
mediaeval  Europe  still  find  votaries  in  modern  London  and  New 
York.  It  would  almost  appear  as  though  man,  civilised  or  savage, 
must  cling  to  something  beyond  the  natural — or  at  least  as  though 
those  of  the  strongest  mental  fibre  only  can  stand  quite  alone  and 
self-reliant.  Take  away  the  convictions  of  religion  from  the 
average  human  being,  and  no  fetish  seems  too  gross  for  him  to 
welcome — none  so  degraded  that  he  cannot  build  to  it  an  altar. 
Thus  the  individual  whose  mind  rejects  the  conception  of  a 
patient  and  purposeful  God  as  mere  childish  vapouring  may  be  quite 
ready  to  believe  that  his  fate  and  future  are  plotted  out  for  him 
by  planets  whereof  the  attributes  and  influences  are  fabled  from 
names  bestowed  upon  them  by  the  fancy  of  the  ancients ;  or  even, 
like  some  poor  savage,  be  prepared  to  find  the  promise  of  pro- 
sperity or  sorrow  in  the  appearance  of  a  magpie,  and,  with  a  faith  as 
full  as  it  is  piteous,  to  augur  death  among  its  inmates  from  the  bloom- 
ing in  the  house  of  a  flower  that  has  been  announced  ill-omened. 


154  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

This  was  the  second  day  of  the  Bungay  Races,  but  I  was  only 
in  time  for  the  last  three  events.  About  provincial  race-meetings 
there  are  many  opinions,  and  my  own,  as  a  non-racing  man,  is 
rather  against  them.  To  begin  with,  they  encourage  gambling ; 
and  as  a  person  who  has  lost  hard-earned  money  in  various  sport- 
ing ventures,  though  not  on  horses,  my  attitude  towards  gambling 
is,  theoretically  at  any  rate,  severe.  Apart  from  joking,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  betting  does  an  immense  amount  of  mischief — let  those 
who  doubt  it  walk  down  the  Strand  and  watch  the  news-boys  on 
the  afternoon  of  any  race-meeting — especially  to  novices  who  are 
so  unfortunate  as  to  be  successful  in  their  first  essay.  All  who 
enter  upon  this  field  should  pray  for  failure.  I  remember  a 
story  that  my  late  father  used  to  tell  me  of  how  when  he  was 
a  boy  he  went  to  the  Bath  racecourse,  and  there  lost  a  guinea, 
which  his  father  had  given  him,  either  to  a  gentleman  who 
manipulated  a  thimble  and  three  peas,  or  to  a  bookmaker — I 
forget  which — and  of  how,  then  and  there,  he  made  up  his  mind 
that  it  would  be  the  last  coin  of  his  which  was  ever  risked  in  this 
fashion.  Many  a  man  who  had  won  a  guinea  would  have  a 
different  tale  to  tell. 

If  these  meetings  encouraged  the  breeding  of  good  horses,  and 
if  the  prizes  were  in  the  main  confined  to  the  owners  of  animals 
bred  in  the  district,  their  desirability,  to  my  mind,  would  be  easier 
to  argue ;  but,  in  fact,  I  believe  that  this  is  not  the  case.  The 
racers  that  appear  on  these  local  courses  are  for  the  most  part 
second  or  third  class  platers  which  travel  from  meeting  to  meeting 
with  their  attendant  crowd  of  professional  jockeys  and  white-hatted 
bookmakers.  Against  these  very  experienced  persons  the  astute 
and  horsey  gents  of  the  neighbourhood,  grooms  who  have  saved  a 
little  money  and  what  not,  pit  themselves,  and  as  a  rule  come  off 
second  best.  Indeed,  as  the  late  Mr.  Barney  Barnato  is  reported 
to  have  said  of  the  '  sound  business  man '  who  thought  that  he 
could  see  through  and  profit  by  the  financial  machinations  of  the 
*  Magnates '  of  the  Kaffir  Market — 'a  snowflake  in  hell  fire  would 
have  a  better  chance.'     Also,  as  my  own  experience  shows  me, 


APRIL  155 

sometimes   these  '  clever  ones  '  get  drunk  and  lose  their  situa- 
tions. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  urged  that  race-meetings  bring  money 
to  a  neighbourhood,  and  afford  innocent  enjoyment  to  many 
country  people  who  make  a  holiday  of  the  occasion.  Without 
doubt  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  this  view  of  the  case,  and  I  am 
bound  to  add,  from  my  experience  as  a  magistrate,  that 
singularly  little  trouble  has  arisen  at  the  local  races.  The  worst 
case  which  I  can  remember  was  that  of  some  welchers  who  were 
brought  before  us  on  the  charge  of  having  defrauded  a  number  of 
people  of  their  money,  one  of  whom  escaped,  while  his  companion, 
a  very  smartly  dressed  gentleman,  was  convicted  and  sent  to  jail  for 
a  month.  Perhaps  the  best  comment  on  the  undecided  state  of 
my  mind  as  to  these  festivities  is  that  I  subscribe  a  modest  sum 
towards  them. 

April  23. — Thursday,  the  21st,  was  cold  but  bright.  On  the 
farm  we  were  horse-hoeing  beans.  This  is  an  operation  that  to 
the  inexperienced  looks  terribly  destructive,  especially  in  the  case 
of  winter  beans,  which  by  now  are  tall.  However  carefully  the 
horse  may  march  down  the  rows,  or  with  whatever  skill  the  hoer 
may  manage  his  instrument,  many  of  the  stalks  are  cut  by  its 
sharp  knives  and  utterly  destroyed.  At  first  sight  this  seems  a 
wanton  and  a  cruel  waste,  but  in  fact  it  is  not  so.  To  begin 
with,  those  that  are  sacrificed  most  likely  have  sprung  outside 
the  exact  line,  and  are  therefore  encroaching  upon  the  air  and  space 
required  by  their  neighbours.  Also,  even  if  a  mistake  is  made 
occasionally,  and  some  are  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  annihilated 
although  occupying  their  right  and  lawful  place,  still,  if  the  *  plant ' 
be  a  fair  one,  a  little  hole  here  and  there  does  it  no  harm,  since 
down  it  the  sunlight  percolates  to  the  survivors.  Any  such  losses 
are  amply  compensated  for  by  the  destruction  of  thousands  of 
weeds  and  by  the  stirring  of  the  soil  about  the  roots  of  the  crop. 
Also  we  rolled  beet-land  and  dragged  out  twitch-grass  on  that 
portion  of  the  Thwaite  field.  No.   28,  which  is  to  be  drilled  with 


156  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

carrots.  Of  this  pestilent  stuff  there  seems  to  be  no  end;  I  sup- 
pose that  the  soil  of  the  field  is  particularly  well  suited  to  its 
growth.  Already  this  year  we  have  burnt  a  great  quantity,  and 
still  there  is  more  to  be  destroyed. 

Several  of  the  lambs  are  still  sick  and  stiff,  but  I  do  not  think 
that  any  more  will  die.  Hood  and  I  counted  them  by  opening 
the  back  lawn  gate  a  little  way  and  allowing  the  flock  to  rush 
through,  which  it  did  eagerly,  imagining  that  there  was  something 
fresh  to  eat  on  the  other  side.  There  are  now  fifty-two  lambs  left, 
the  balance,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  that  the  butcher  has 
taken,  having  deceased. 

Yesterday,  Friday,  was  dull  and  cold  with  a  north-east  wind. 
We  drilled  the  beet  on  Baker's  (half  of  No.  44),  using  the  Tankard 
variety,  which  on  the  whole  we  have  found  about  the  best  for  this 
land,  and  among  it  some  cabbage  as  usual.  Also  we  rolled  pease, 
beans,  and  barley,  to  press  the  earth  about  their  roots  and 
discomfort  some  of  the  grubs  and  insects  at  work  beneath.  As  in  the 
case  of  the  harrowing  about  which  I  have  spoken,  it  seems 
extraordinary  that  the  passing  of  a  heavy  roller  over  young  pease 
and  beans  should  not  crush  or  greatly  injure  them.  Yet  this  is 
not  the  case— they  bow  their  heads  to  the  roll  and  for  a  while  look 
a  little  depressed,  but  on  the  following  day  they  are  as  upright  and 
smiling  as  ever.  One  cart  was  employed  carrying  root  to  the 
sheds ;  it  is  astonishing  what  an  amount  of  time  and  labour  is 
taken  up  in  this  needful  operation  when  there  are  many  cattle  to 
be  fed  and  the  hales  in  some  instances  lie  at  a  distance  from  the 
buildings. 

The  sheep  have  taken  to  scouring,  though  whether  owing  to 
the  grass  being  lush  after  the  wet,  or  to  their  eating  it  while  the 
night  frosts  are  still  upon  it,  I  do  not  know.  As  a  remedy  we  are 
folding  them  on  the  Buildings-meadow,  No.  6,  and  giving  them 
some  dry  food  in  the  shape  of  corn  and  hay  to  eat  at  night.  This 
will  do  the  field,  which  is  one  of  my  young  pastures,  great  good, 
and,  I  hope,  cure  the  sheep  of  their  ailment.  I  notice  that  now, 
when  they  have  had  a  bite  at  the  new  grass,  the  ewes  will  not 


APRIL  157 

eat  the  beet  half  as  greedily  as  they  did.  Formerly  they  used  to 
gobble  every  bit  of  them  with  the  exception  of  a  dirty  little 
piece  of  that  portion  of  the  rind  which  lay  undermost ;  now  it 
is  common  to  see  the  root  messed  about  and  half  of  it  left 
uneaten. 

By  the  way,  the  beet  which  we  drilled  yesterday  were,  I  think, 
our  last.  Certainly  we  have  no  reason  to  complain  of  the  way 
they  have  gone  in  this  year ;  I  only  trust  that  they  will  come  up 
as  well. 

In  the  evening  the  nightingales  were  singing  most  beautifully 
upon  the  Vineyard  Hills,  their  favourite  haunt. 

This  morning  I  received  a  lithographed  form  telling  me  that 
the  Unionist  member  for  South  Norfolk  had  resigned,  and  that 
my  presence  was  requested  at  Norwich  at  11.30  to  assist  in  the 
selection  of  a  candidate  to  fight  the  seat.  As  to  reach  Norwich 
by  11.30  I  should  have  had  only  a  few  minutes  to  change  my 
clothes,  get  breakfast,  and  catch  the  train,  it  was  not  possible  for 
me  to  attend  the  meeting.  This,  however,  will  not  matter  much, 
as  no  doubt  the  candidate  is  already  fixed  upon  by  the 
responsible  people  at  Norwich  who  are  managing  the  election, 
for  had  it  been  otherwise  a  longer  notice  would  have  been  given. 
I  confess,  however,  that  in  these  democratic  days  I  think  it  is 
best  that  a  candidate  should  be  chosen  by  a  general  gathering  of 
the  party,  and  after  he  has  laid  his  views  before  them  in  a  formal 
speech.  That  was  what  happened  when,  some  years  ago,  I 
contested  a  seat  in  this  county  in  the  agricultural  interest,  and  I 
am  sorry  that  the  precedent  has  not  been  adhered  to  in  the 
present  case,  although  very  possibly  there  were  good  reasons  for  its 
neglect.  If  all  the  leading  members  of  a  party  have  attended,  or 
are  afforded  a  reasonable  chance  of  attending,  such  a  meeting, 
having  been  personally  consulted,  they  will  work  harder  and 
with  more  enthusiasm  for  the  candidate  who  happens  to  be 
chosen. 

Putting  this  question  aside,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  party  has 
hit  upon  a  most  unfortunate  moment  to  accept  the  resignation  of 


158  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

the  late  member,  as  the  baker  tells  me  that,  owing  to  the  war 
between  Spain  and  America,  and  the  cornering  of  wheat  by 
Yankee  speculators,  flour  has  already  risen  threepence  a  stone. 
This  the  agricultural  labourer,  who  very  often  is  not  logical,  will 
be  pretty  sure  to  score  up  against  the  Government,  and  by  way  of 
protest  vote  for  any  one  who  opposes  them. 

Wheat  has  risen  over  four  shillings,  and,  for  the  first  time  since 
I  know  not  when,  stands  at  more  than  forty  shillings  the  quarter, 
a  price  at  which  it  will  pay  to  grow.  This,  however,  will  not  benefit 
farmers  much,  seeing  that  in  these  parts  most  of  them  have  long 
ago  sold  every  grain.  Indeed,  the  majority  of  the  small  men  are 
in  such  chronic  want  of  money  that,  in  order  to  pay  their  labourers, 
they  are  forced  to  rush  their  corn  on  to  the  market  immediately 
after  harvest,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  condition  of  the  trade. 
Most  of  mine  has  gone  also,  but  I  believe  that  here  and  at 
Bedingham  I  have  a  hundred  coomb — that  is  fifty  quarters — left. 
We  must  get  it  thrashed  as  soon  as  possible,  for  I  have  no  faith  in 
the  permanence  of  a  boom  in  wheat,  and  quite  expect  that  it  will 
come  down  as  fast  as  it  went  up,  although  perhaps  not  to  the  level 
which  it  reached  a  few  years  back. 

I  think  it  was  in  1894  that  we  were  offered  only  eighteen 
shillings  or  a  pound  a  quarter  for  good  wheat.  As  it  was  ridiculous 
to  sell  at  this  price,  I  fed  the  pigs  on  it,  and  the  following  year  put 
but  ten  acres  under  corn  for  the  sake  of  the  straw.  Free  Trade 
may,  as  many  declare,  be  a  boon  sent  straight  from  Heaven,  but  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  there  is  something  wrong  in  a  state  of 
affairs  which  forces  farmers  to  accept  twenty-two  or  twenty  three 
shillings  for  wheat  that  cost  them  about  thirty  to  grow.  Perhaps, 
however,  this  is  due  to  my  stupid  agricultural  way  of  looking 
at  the  question. 

Peachey  is  ploughing  up  the  strip  of  land  where  the  beet-hales 
stood  on  the  All  Hallows  nine-acre.  No.  36,  the  last  of  these  beet 
having  been  carted  into  the  shed.  This  space  will  be  sown  with 
barley  like  the  rest  of  the  field,  and  though  it  will  come  in  later 
and  be  a  different  sample,  the  crop  can  always  be  used  as  food  for 


APRIL  159 

pigs  or  pheasants.  Afterwards  he  began  to  re-plough  the  glebe- 
piece,  No.  38,  on  that  side  of  the  dyke  which  is  reserved  for 
swedes,  the  remainder  being  kept  for  potatoes. 

It  is  very  cold  with  a  piercing  wind  to-day,  and  the  night  frosts 
continue. 

April  24. — To-day,  Sunday,  is  also  very  cold,  with  east  wind 
and  occasional  bursts  of  sunshine.  On  my  way  to  church  I  saw 
a  little  whirlwind — Roger's  Blast  is  the  local  name — tear  across 
the  field  and  strike  the  road  in  front  of  us,  lifting  dust,  bits  of 
sticks,  and  dead  leaves  high  into  the  air,  where  they  twisted  round 
and  round  in  the  form  of  a  cone  till  the  blast,  which  though  small 
was  violent,  passed  on  and  left  them.  I  have  often  seen  these 
miniature  cyclones  in  Africa,  but,  so  far  as  I  recollect,  very  seldom 
in  England,  and  I  never  yet  met  any  one  who  could  explain 
exactly  what  they  are.  When  they  do  occur  here  the  labourers 
say  that  they  portend  fine  weather. 

This  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham,  and  as  a  rather  feeble 
bell  was  still  tolling  when  I  approached  the  church,  I  leant  my 
bicycle  against  a  gravestone  and  entered.  Altogether  there  were 
about  twenty  people  present  in  the  ancient  but  somewhat 
dilapidated  building,  of  which  the  most  uncommon  feature  is  the 
beautiful  carved  rood-screen  that,  from  slots  still  existing  m  the 
masonry,  seems  once  to  have  filled  the  arch.  Indeed,  now  that  I 
think  of  it,  I  remember  the  daughter  of  a  former  rector  telling  me 
some  years  ago  that  in  past  days — I  believe  within  her  own  memory, 
though  of  this  I  am  not  certain — some  of  the  carved  work  of  this 
screen  was  pulled  down  and  used  for  fuel.  The  church  is  divided 
into  two  almost  equal  parts  by  the  screen,  the  chancel  being  much 
larger  than  is  usual,  doubtless  because  in  past  generations  it  was 
used  for  the  accommodation  of  the  monks,  who  had  a  private  door 
at  one  side  of  it  communicating  with  the  priory. 

About  this  fane,  with  its  stonework  stained  by  the  dust  and 
damp  of  centuries,  its  mouldering  monuments  and  marbles,  its 
worn  benches  and  rough  brick  pavement,  beneath  which  lie  the 


i6o  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

bones  of  those  who  like  myself  once  held  lands  in  Bedingham 
and  sat  to  worship  in  its  sanctuary,  there  is  an  atmosphere— a 
very  presence  of  the  past — which  impresses  me  more  and  comes 
closer  to  the  tangible  than  that  of  any  other  church  I  know. 
Perhaps  it  is  the  half-forsaken  appearance  of  the  place,  or  the  dull 
light  of  the  April  afternoon,  or  the  solemn  echo  of  the  rector's 
voice  as  he  reads  the  prayers,  or  all  of  them  together,  that  have 
this  peculiar  power  of  reviving  that  which  sleeps,  and  almost  of 
making  visible  that  which  has  vanished.  But  that  which  sleeps 
may  awake,  and  that  which  has  vanished  may  appear.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  be  superstitious — indeed  there  is  no  superstition  in 
the  belief,  or  perhaps  in  the  vagary,  that  here  are  present  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  pressing  round  us  in  the  place  once  familiar  to 
their  feet,  watching  us  with  their  quiet  eyes  which  have  looked 
on  peace,  and  waiting  to  welcome  us  to  the  number  of  their 
company. 

At  least  this  is  certain — our  old  English  churches  bind  together 
the  generations  who  passed  beneath  their  doors  in  life,  and  in 
death  sleep  about  their  walls,  with  a  tie  that  is  not  the  less  strong 
because  it  can  scarcely  be  defined  in  words. 

After  church  I  walked  over  the  farm.  The  old  mare,  who 
looks  very  spare  and  aged,  has  now  produced  a  rather  thin  foal, 
whose  presence  seems  to  surprise  and  annoy  her,  for  from  time  to 
time  she  turns  her  ancient  head  and  contemplates  it  with  a  hollow 
and  inquiring  eye.  We  have,  therefore,  but  one  effective  horse 
left  upon  the  place  at  present,  by  the  help  of  which  Moore  got  in 
the  kohl-rabi  yesterday  on  part  of  the  new-drained  field.  No.  i8. 
First  the  horse  rolled  the  land,  then  he  went  into  the  drill  and 
drilled  it,  ending  up  a  useful  day's  work  by  returning  to  the  roller 
and  rolling  it  again.  On  No.  2 1  I  found  the  grass  sown  for  per- 
manent pasture  just  pricking  through  among  the  barley,  thousands 
of  tiny  green  and  yellow  spears,  with  here  and  there  an  unfamiliar 
seedling,  doubtless  of  chicory  or  burnet,  or  one  of  the  other  tap- 
rooted  herbs  that  have  been  sown  among  the  grasses.  The 
beans  grow  well  as  usual,  but  are  again  being  hoed  to  get  rid  of 


APRIL  i6i 

the  shed  barley  springing  among  them.  The  wheats  also  flourish, 
but  the  barleys  look  somewhat  stunted  and  yellow.  In  walking 
across  the  meadows  I  found  a  purple  orchis,  the  first  that  I  have 
seen  this  year. 

April  25. — To-day  we  have  been  setting  potatoes  on  part  of 
the  glebe  five-acre,  No.  38.  Mr.  Robert  Simpson,  who  is  my  agent, 
came  over  here  this  morning  with  the  pleasing  intelligence  that  the 
repairs  upon  a  little  farm  belonging  to  this  estate  at  Rumburgh, 
which  produces  a  rental  of  about  25/.,  will  cost  not  less  than  95/., 
or  about  four  years'  rent.  It  has  been  the  same  story  ever  since  I 
have  had  to  do  with  this  property,  until  at  times  I  wonder  how 
there  can  possibly  be  anything  left  to  repair.  Of  course,  the 
explanation  is  that  in  the  old  days  farmers  were  not  so  particular 
about  buildings ;  indeed,  they  *  made  out '  with  sheds  and  hovels 
that  tenants  at  the  present  time  would  not  even  look  at.  But 
then,  thirty  years  ago  the  land  was  valuable,  and  a  farmer  did  not 
throw  up  his  holding  merely  because  the  landlord  refused  to 
execute  extensive  and  costly  repairs  to  the  buildings  on  it,  for  he 
knew  that  it  might  be  a  long  while  before  he  could  get  another  to 
his  mind.  Now  the  position  has  changed  entirely,  and  just  when 
he  can  least  afford  to  bear  the  outlay,  the  owner  of  the  soil  must 
at  any  cost  atone  for  the  neglect  of  his  predecessors,  or  lose  such 
tenants  as  remain  to  him. 

In  walking  through  the  Bath  Hills  plantation  this  evening  1 
observed  that  my  plan  of  enclosing  the  hillside  with  barbed  wire  is 
already  beginning  to  bear  fruit.  I  can  never  remember  seeing  or 
hearing  so  many  birds  about  the  place.  In  addition  to  all  the 
commoner  kinds,  I  observed  a  yellowish  bird  with  the  shape  and 
general  appearance  of  a  hawfinch,  with  which  I  am  quite 
unfamiliar ;  also  green  woodpeckers,  hawks,  nightjars  (I  think),  jays, 
and  many  others. 

April  26. — Three  of  the  horses  have  gone  to-day  to  drag 
waggons  loaded  with  furniture  for  the  house  at  Kessingland,  but 

M 


i62  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Whitrup  is  ploughing  with  the  two  in-foal  mares  in  the  eleven- 
acre  on  Baker's,  No.  44,  while  the  mare  that  has  foaled  is  rolling 
barley,  and  the  old  horse  has  been  fetching  root  into  the  sheds. 

I  went  this  morning  to  look  at  the  young  cow  which  has  just 
calved.  Her  mother  was  one  of  the  Shotley  lot,  of  which  I  bought 
six  or  seven  at  the  sale  some  years  ago.  I  remember  that  I  gave 
27/.  for  her,  because  she  was  so  beautiful  to  look  at,  but  shortly 
after  she  produced  her  calf  (bred  by  a  Shotley  bull)  she  turned 
out  such  a  hopeless  kicker  that  we  were  obliged  to  fat  and  sell  her 
to  the  butcher.  Her  daughter  is  now  making  a  fine  cow,  and 
yesterday  produced  a  calf,  I  think  her  second.  Like  her  mother, 
she  is  rather  wild— at  least,  she  did  not  at  all  appreciate  my 
appearance  upon  the  scene ;  indeed,  I  found  it  necessary  to  retire 
quickly.  Old  New-born  Pride  knows  better  than  to  make  a 
fuss  ;  her  calf  is  small  but  very  pretty,  and,  perhaps  from  force  of 
long-continued  habit,  the  production  of  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
affected  her  in  any  way  whatsoever.  I  hear  that  after  I  left 
Bedingham,  the  day  before  yesterday,  the  best  colt  there,  a  very 
fine  young  animal,  managed  to  hurt  his  shoulder,  probably  by 
dashing  himself  against  a  gatepost.  The  farrier  is  of  opinion  that  he 
will  be  bad  for  about  three  months,  and  I  trust  that  we  may  get 
off  so  well.  A  year  or  two  ago  I  had  a  foal  which  injured  its 
shoulder  so  badly  that  in  the  end  we  were  obliged  to  kill  it,  a  very 
grievous  loss. 

The  wind  still  holds  exceeding  bitter,  and  owing  to  the  night 
frosts  there  is  but  little  growth.  A  beech-tree — one  of  several  that 
stand  upon  the  garden  lawn  of  this  house — has,  however,  come 
into  leaf.  During  all  the  many  years  that  I  have  known  this 
place,  whatever  the  season,  that  tree  has  never  failed  to  be  the 
first  to  unfold  its  foHage,  something  in  its  constitution  making  it 
of  an  earlier  habit  than  its  fellows.  The  hawthorns  also  have 
dressed  themselves  in  tender  green,  and  down  by  the  Bath  Hills 
I  noticed  an  oak  almost  bursting  its  buds,  while  those  of  the  ash 
at  its  side  were  still  asleep  in  their  hard  sheaths  of  winter  black. 
Although   it  was  quite  hot  here  under  the  hill,  where   the  east 


APRIL  ,  163 

wind  never  comes,  many  of  the  beeches  also  have  made  no  start 
at  all.  The  butterflies,  however,  know  that  spring  is  at  hand, 
for  already  I  have  seen  peacocks,  large  sulphurs,  and  two  speci- 
mens of  the  scarce  great  tortoiseshell.  To-day  also  I  heard  the 
cuckoo  for  the  first  time  this  year. 

April  2"]. — Last  night  there  came  a  fine  and  welcome  shower, 
for  the  country  was  parching  in  the  harsh  cold  wind,  followed  this 
morning  by  a  blessed  change  in  the  weather  to  the  conditions  of 
an  English  spring,  as  it  is  fondly  imagined  by  poets  and  persons 
living  in  the  Colonies.  The  birds  seem  to  appreciate  this  un- 
expected improvement,  for  they  are  all  singing  madly,  especially 
on  the  Vineyard  Hills. 

To-day  we  have  thrashed  out  our  last  little  stack  of  wheat, 
which  produced  about  twenty-five  coomb  of  grain,  and — notwith- 
standing that  it  was  built  upon  vermin-proof  iron  supports — a 
large  quantity  of  mice.  By  the  way,  I  wonder  how  mice  in  a 
stack  of  this  sort,  which  they  cannot  well  leave,  manage  for  water. 
Of  course,  when  rain  falls,  they  can  climb  to  the  thatch  and 
drink,  but  sometimes  there  are  long  periods  without  any  rain,  and 
what  do  they  do  then,  feeding,  as  they  must,  upon  the  dryest  of 
dry  foods?  Unless  they  are  able  to  live  without  moisture, 
which  seems  improbable,  I  cannot  imagine  a  solution  of  the 
problem.^  The  wheat  which  we  thrashed  at  Bedingham  yesterday 
proved  disappointing  so  far  as  quantity  is  concerned,  as  we  got 
about  twenty  coomb  less  than  we  expected.  In  this  neighbour- 
hood, however,  it  is  the  almost  universal  experience  of  farmers  that 
last  season  was  a  very  bad  one  for  wheat.  It  is  a  grain  which  can 
stand,  and  even  enjoys,  drought,  but  in  1897  it  seems  to  have  had 
too  much  of  it. 

April  28. — This  morning  there  was  a  soft  and  gentle  rain, 
which  stopped  about  an  hour  after  midday.  The  election  excite- 
ment is  beginning.      The  Conservative  candidate  is  my  friend, 

'  A  correspondent  suggests  that  dew  is  the  solution. 

Ma 


164  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Mr.  Sancroft  Holmes,  and  I  cannot  think  of  any  one  who,  if 
elected,  would  make  a  better  member,  as  he  is  a  gentleman 
who  for  many  years  has  had  a  large  experience  as  an  owner  and  a 
farmer  of  land,  and  who  has  given  his  time  to  serving  the  county 
in  various  capacities  as  a  magistrate,  county  councillor,  a  chairman 
of  the  assessment  committee,  and  in  other  offices.  I  am,  however, 
by  no  means  certain  that  all  this  will  go  in  his  favour  with  the  voters. 

Two  of  his  agents  have  been  here  this  morning  to  arrange 
about  meetings,  and,  as  one  of  them  said  to  me,  the  best  qualifica- 
tion for  a  Conservative  or  Unionist  candidate  is  that  he  should  have 
no  record  whatsoever  in  the  county.  Indeed,  if  he  chances  to  reside 
in  the  agricultural  division  which  he  contests,  the  more  colourless 
his  character  the  better.  Public  services  will  not  help  him,  for  the 
public  servant  makes  enemies  ;  the  only  fame  and  qualities  that  are 
likely  to  be  of  service  to  him  are  a  reputation  for  wealth  and  an  open 
purse.  If  he  is  a  magistrate,  every  bad  character  who  has  ever  been 
committed  before  a  Bench,  together  with  that  character's  friends, 
will  work  and  vote  against  him,  and  the  vote  of  a  bad  character  is 
just  as  valuable  as  that  of  the  veriest  saint.  If  he  is  a  farmer,  he 
is  naturally  held  to  be  an  enemy  of  the  labouring  race  ;  if  he  is  a 
landlord,  then  the  hoary  but  inextinguishable  and  effective  lie 
that  he  has  been  heard  to  say  that  nine  shillings  a  week  is  enough 
for  any  labouring  man  is  sure  to  be  circulated  to  his  detriment. 
Also  it  will  be  said  that  he  makes  a  custom  of  turning  oif  his 
hands  to  starve  during  winter,  and  that  he  has  dismissed  men  for 
expressing  sympathy  with  political  opinions  of  which  he  does  not 
approve. 

In  saying  this  I  speak  of  what  I  know,  for  in  the  course  of  a 
contested  election  I  have  suffered  from  all  these  fictions,  which,  as 
I  believe,  by  a  small  majority  finally  turned  the  day  against  me, 
with  a  picturesque  addition  which  I  was  told  proved  very  effective, 
namely,  that  I  had  been  known  to  murder  quite  a  considerable 
number  of  black  women.  In  short,  in  an  Eastern  Counties  agricul- 
tural division,  I  incline  to  the  view  that  the  ordinary  'carpet-bagger,' 
on  whichever  side  he  may  be  standing,  has  a  better  chance  of  sue- 


APRIL  165 

cess  than  any  local  man,  however  suitable,  who  does  not  happen  to 
be  a  brewer.  It  may  seem  almost  incredible  to  the  intelligent 
dwellers  in  cities  who  are  not  acquainted  with  our  more  remote 
country  districts  that  this  should  be  the  case,  but  so  it  is. 

I  do  not  know  if  the  labourers  in  their  heart  of  hearts  accept 
all  these  falsehoods,  but  I  am  sure  that  a  large  proportion  wish 
to  accept  them.  In  many  cases  they  are  ignorant  and  prejudiced ; 
also,  not  unnaturally,  they  are  embittered  by  the  humble  nature  of 
their  lot  and  the  pitiful  smallness  of  their  wage.  Then  come  the 
agitator  and  the  gentleman  from  London,  who  tell  them  that  this 
condition  of  affairs  is  brought  about  by  the  parson  and  the  squire, 
and  especially  by  the  individual  who  is  seeking  to  represent  them 
in  Parliament,  and  his  friends.  That  it  is  caused  by  the  dreadful 
depression  in  agriculture,  which  makes  it  impossible  for  their  wages 
to  rise  to  the  level  of  town  rates,  they  steadily  neglect  to  explain. 

To  all  these  fierce  prejudices  money  is  too  frequently  the  only 
answer.  Very  often  the  rich  man  standing  for  a  rural  division 
fortifies  his  cause  by  a  deliberate  pauperising  of  the  constituency ; 
and  in  this  case,  unless  he  is  confronted  by  an  opponent  with 
equal  or  greater  means,  he  will  probably  be  returned.  In  one  Eastern 
Counties  division  two  giants  of  wealth  opposed  each  other  at 
a  recent  election,  turning  it  between  them  into  a  very  land  of 
Canaan ;  for  so  fast  did  the  milk,  honey,  blankets,  and  other  good 
things  flow  that,  thus  said  rumour,  cottages  in  that  happy  country 
commanded  a  handsome  premium,  like  London  houses  in  the 
season.  But  one  candidate  was  rather  richer  than  the  other,  and 
he  won.  Lately  also  we  have  learned,  through  the  press,  that  a 
financial  Star  benefited  the  constituency  he  hoped  to  represent  to 
the  tune  of  14,000/.  per  annum  distributed  in  doles.  How  does 
such  generosity  differ  from  the  commonest  corruption  ? 

Even  the  candidate  of  humbler  means  is  exposed  to  what  can 
only  be  described  as  a  system  of  blackmail.  From  the  moment 
it  becomes  known  that  he  proposes  to  stand  every  village  club 
and  institution  within  the  borders  of  the  constituency  makes  its 
request  upon  him  for  subscriptions.     I  say  its  request,  but  prac- 


i66  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

tically  it  is  a  command,  since  he  can  well  guess  what  will  be  the 
result  if  he  declines  or  is  unable  to  pay. 

From  this  state  of  affairs  it  would  appear  that  our  election 
system,  which  purports  to  be  pure,  is  in  reality  tainted,  since, 
although  votes  can  no  longer  be  bought  openly,  they  are,  in 
fact,  bought,  and  largely,  under  cover  of  social  and  charitable  sub- 
scriptions ;  further,  that  unless  he  is  young,  ambitious,  wealthy, 
and  not  too  squeamish,  the  man  is  rash  who  allows  himself 
to  be  put  up  to  fight  a  seat  in  an  agricultural  division  in  our 
parts  of  England.  That  this  is  becoming  widely  recognised 
is  shown  by  the  growing  difficulty  of  obtaining  suitable  candi- 
dates on  the  Unionist  side  who  reside  or  have  any  considerable 
stake  in  their  own  divisions.  Among  the  other  party,  the  candi- 
dates are  in  most  instances  gentlemen  quite  unconnected  with  the 
district;  though  why  this  should  be  so  I  do  not  know,  seeing 
that  in  these  counties  it  is  by  no  means  difticult  for  any  one  of 
sufificient  means  and  a  humble  modicum  of  ability  to  contest  and 
win  a  seat  in  the  Radical  interest.  Indeed,  given  the  money — 
plenty  of  it — and  the  ability  may  be  dispensed  with,  let  the  candi- 
date's party  badge  be  red  or  blue.  Why  should  we  wonder  ?  A 
people  to  whom  wealth  is  an  object  of  such  heartfelt  homage  can 
scarcely  object  to  the  wide  dominion  of  King  Cash.  The  hypo- 
thesis may  be  denied,  but  if  we  do  not  serve  Mammon,  or 
money,  which  is  the  same  thing,  how  does  it  chance  that  we  so 
much  admire  those  who  contrive  suddenly  to  acquire  it  in  great 
heaps?  Although  there  may  be  exceptions,  an  especially  suc- 
cessful speculator,  in  drinkshops  for  instance,  would  not  in  general 
be  sought  out  simply  for  the  charm  of  his  conversation  or  the 
graces  of  his  mind,  but  set  him  in  a  palace  in  Park  Lane  with  the 
appropriate  accessories,  and  how  delightful  he  becomes  ! 

Again,  there  arise  people  whom  the  financial  Press  speaks  of 
respectfully  as  Magnates.  Sometimes  the  observer  knows  their 
past.  He  knows  by  what  means  Mr.  Magnate's  fortune  has  been 
created  :  how  the  market  was  '  beared,'  that  is  depressed,  and 
hundreds  ruined  or  impoverished  that  he  might  buy  in  cheap ;  how 


APRIL  167 

it  was  'bulled,'  that  is  inflated,  and  hundreds  more  ruined  or  im- 
poverished that  he  might  sell  out  dear ;  how,  also,  the  worthless 
vendor's  shares  in  the  unpayable  mine,  obtained,  perhaps,  for 
nothing,  became  the  property  of  the  stockholders  in  Mr.  Mag- 
nate's companies  at  4/.  each.  (Who  can  possibly  have  sold  them  ? 
Not  Mr.  Magnate ;  they  were  never  even  in  his  name.)  He  knows, 
too,  how  Mr.  Tradesman,  shrewd,  industrious  person,  reaped  those 
mighty  millions  out  of  the  misery  of  the  sweating  (and  sweated) 
toilers  with  whom  he  ploughs  his  plenteous  field,  scourging  them 
to  his  half-paid  tasks  with  the  bitter  lash  of  want ;  or,  mayhap,  far- 
seeing  Merchant  Prince,  gathering  up  his  honey  by  the  simpler 
expedients  of  sharp  practice.  Butter  !  Margarine? — In  fact  there 
is  small  difference — Foreign  meat  sold  as  British?  Why  not? 
Really  it  is  a  better  article.  Table  Delicacies  ?  Well,  a  mere  trade 
description  implying  no  guarantee;  and,  my  dear  sir,  these  are 
just  the  little  foresights  and  economies  which,  when  at  last  the 
books  come  to  balance,  make  the  difference  between  a  simple 
living,  such  as  any  old-fashioned,  fossil-headed  shopkeeper  may 
expect,  and  a  fortune  worth  the  winning.  Also  if  the  business  is 
to  be  floated  as  a  company  large  profits  must  be  shown  or  the 
public  won't  apply.     And  so  forth. 

The  rest  is  easy.  Shall  that  excellent  champagne  stay  uncorked, 
those  glittering  halls  untrodden  ?  Why,  don't  you  know  every  guest 
will  receive  as  a  cloak-ticket  a  numbered  pin  or  bracelet  of  that 
raw  red  gold  set  in  diamonds  ?  What  do  you  say  about,  yes — red 
as  'the  blood  of  righteous  Abel'?  '  Murdered  by  his  brother  ! ' 
Well,  of  course,  sometimes  people  have  to  do  funny  things  out  in 
those  places.  Who  was  Abel  ?  His  partner  ? — a  Jew  I  suppose.  I 
dare  say  he  wasn't  righteous ;  I  dare  say  that  he  had  treated  him 
badly.  Oh  !  you  mean  the  old  Bible  story.  How  silly  you  are  ;  what 
has  that  to  do  with  Mr.  Magnate  and  the  way  he  got  his  money  ? 
Anyhow,  it  is  no  affair  of  mine,  and  I  shall  accept-there  ! 

And  so  the  Duchess  goes,  and  the  Lord  Mayor  goes,  and  every- 
body goes,  and  are  paid  in  bracelets  or  otherwise,  and  next  morning 
— is  it  not  written  in  the  book  of  all  the  papers  ?     Then  comes  the 


i6S  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

sequel :  the  social  success  and  the  public  banquet  in  the  City ; 
the  advertised  subscriptions  and  the  Knighthood ;  the  thumping 
party  cheques,  and  perchance,  with  good  luck,  the  Peerage.  Thus 
another  constellation  blazes  in  the  fetid  firmament  of  lucre,  and 
longer  grows  the  roll  of  its  aristocracy. 

Worship  him,  the  Right  Honourable  the  Lord  Mountmagnate 
of  Mountmagnate,  the  finest  of  our  new  nobility,  and  understand 
that  money  is  a  defence  indeed.  Listen  to  his  glad  continual 
song,  the  paean  he  puts  up  to  Heaven  as  he  treads  his  fallen  fellow- 
travellers  into  the  mire  of  the  universal  Way,  rejoicing  over  them 
with  the  joy  of  harvest  and  as  men  rejoice  when  they  divide  the 
spoil.  Bow  the  knee  you  honest,  outworn  workers,  whose  antlike 
toil  built  up  his  millions ;  you,  too,  who  are  sodden-witted  with 
his  adulterated  drink  ;  you  also  whose  shares  he  captured  in  the 
panic  upon  the  day  of  the  False  Cable;  and,  above  all,  you  whose 
child  was  poisoned  by  his  preserved  fruits  or  milk  or  fishes.  Praise 
him  on  his  palm-hung,  marbled  balcony,  and  then  back  to  your 
'bus,  if  you  can  pay  the  fare,  and  home  to  wonder  why  benighted 
foreign  nations  think  the  English  hypocritical,  and  whether  a 
graduated  income-tax  would  after  all  be  so  monstrously  unjust. 
For  the  world,  especially  the  British  world,  is  to  the  rich  and  the 
good  things  thereof.  Therefore  grow  rich — as  best  you  can.  At 
the  least,  thus  by  precept  and  example  preacheth  the  triumphant 
Lord  Mountmagnate  of  Mountmagnate  and  his  peers. 

The  gentleman  who  is  opposing  Mr.  Holmes  is  Mr.  Soames, 
who  contested  Ipswich  at  the  last  election.  I  understand  that  he 
has  never  been  in  this  division  before,  and  has  no  property  here. 
Whatever  happens,  this  will,  I  think,  tell  in  his  favour.  There  is 
no  doubt  that,  looking  at  the  matter  from  the  point  of  view  of  a 
Unionist,  the  time  is  peculiarly  ill-chosen  to  contest  the  seat,  as, 
outside  of  any  personal  considerations,  the  rise  in  the  price  ot 
bread  and  the  widespread  dissatisfaction  with  the  Chinese  policy 
of  the  Government,  which  will  affect  the  intelligent  class  of  out- 
voters adversely,  are  sure  to  tell  against  our  candidate.  Further, 
the    reduction    of    the   duty   on   tobacco,    that  has    just   b(;cn 


APRIL  169 

announced  by  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  has,  I  think,  done 
more  harm  than  good,  at  any  rate  in  this  neighbourhood.  The 
ordinary  smoker  does  not  care  whether  he  pays  a  few  pence  more 
or  less  for  his  pound  of  tobacco,  while  the  working  man  will  be 
charged  exactly  the  same  for  his  '  screw,'  and  many  thinking 
electors  are  angry  because  they  see  a  million  a  year  gone  for  ever 
from  the  revenue  of  the  country  (for  once  remitted  these  taxes 
cannot  be  replaced),  while  the  heavily  burdened  payer  of  income- 
tax  wins  no  relief. 

Also  the  country  clergy  are  in  many  instances  exasperated, 
believing  as  they  do  that  a  portion  of  this  million  would  have  been 
better  expended  in  relieving  them  of  some  of  their  double  burden 
of  rates  than  in  enlarging  the  profits  of  the  dealers  in  tobacco. 
They  point  out  that  for  years  they  have  been  the  steady  sup 
porters  of  the  Conservatives,  whom  on  many  occasions  they  have 
done  much  to  return  to  power,  and  think  it  very  hard,  when  there 
is  money  to  spend,  that  they  should  be  neglected  in  the  hour  of  their 
need.  Of  course  I  am  aware  that  some  hold  that  the  clergy  have  no 
grievance,  and  should  not  object  to  pay  the  double  charges,  inas- 
much as  their  income  is  not  professional  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word,  since,  nominally  at  any  rate,  it  is  fixed,  and  does  not  depend 
upon  continuous  and  constantly  renewed  exertion,  like  that  of  a 
doctor  or  a  writer.  Doubtless  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  this 
view  of  the  case,  with  which,  however,  for  my  part  I  do  not  agree. 

To-day  at  Bungay  market  Hood  actually  refused  forty-eight 
shillings  a  quarter  for  my  wheat,  as  he  is  standing  out  for  fifty 
shillings.  Forty-eight  shillings  a  quarter !  It  sounds  like  a 
beautiful  dream  in  the  ears  of  the  poverty-stricken  farmer — if  a 
dream  can  sound.  But  a  lively  recollection  of  the  recent  history 
of  the  corn  trade  makes  me  think  that  such  dreams  are  '  too  bright 
to  last.'  I  cannot  forget  how  in  1894  and  1895  we  were  selling 
wheat  at  about  twenty-two  shillings  a  quarter.  The  present  rise 
strikes  me  as  too  sudden  and  too  violent  to  continue,  for  it  is  bred 
of  scarcity,  scare,  and  speculators,  but  chiefly,  perhaps,  of  specu- 
lators.    If  only  wheat  would  keep  at  about  forty-two  shillings 


I70  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

the  quarter,  arable  farming  could  be  made  to  give  a  reasonable 
return,  and  everybody  must  be  benefited,  not  excluding  the 
agricultural  labourer.  But  of  this  I  fear  that  there  is  little  hope, 
since  the  moment  there  is  any  moderate  profit  to  be  got  out  of 
the  article,  hundreds  of  thousands  more  acres  will  go  down  in  corn 
all  over  the  world,  and  especially  in  Argentina,  where  they  have 
the  advantage  of  paying  their  labour  in  silver  and  notes  at  face  or 
nominal  value,  and  being  paid  for  their  produce  in  gold  at  real 
value,  netting  I  know  not  how  much  per  cent,  by  the  transaction. 
Then  grain  would  be  poured  into  this  country  as  before,  and  the 
unfortunate  farmer  will  find  that  his  gleam  of  hope  was  delusive, 
and  that  he  must  continue  to  submit  to  the  grinding  and  one-sided 
system  of  competition  which  has  brought  disaster  to  him  and  to  all 
dependent  upon  British  land.^ 

Yet  the  unexpected  may  happen,  and  these  fears  may  prove  to 
be  unfounded,  as  I  hope  devoutly  will  be  the  case.  For  instance, 
some  future  Governments  of  Great  Britain  may  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  in  view  of  possible  contingencies  it  is  worth  while  to 
keep  a  larger  quantity  of  land  under  wheat.  I  do  not  mean  that 
they  would  reimpose  the  corn  duties ;  which  is  improbable  unless 
the  agricultural  labourer  should  become  convinced  that  such  a  step 
would  be  to  his  advantage  ;  or,  as  a  last  resource,  the  country 
should  insist  on  it  in  order  to  keep  the  rural  population  upon 
the  land.  But  I  do  mean  that  possibly  it  might  be  wise  and  politic 
for  the  State  to  give  a  moderate  bounty  to  the  growers  of  wheat, 
payable  for  so  long,  or  whenever  the  market  price  of  that  cereal 
foil  below  thirty  shillings  a  quarter.  Certain  good  arguments  can 
be  advanced  in  favour  of  such  a  course,  but  I  will  only  instance 
one  of  them — that  it  is  worth  while  to  make  an  effort  to  preserve  the 
sturdy  class  of  man  who  has  been  concerned  with  the  cultivation 
of  the  land  as  a  yeoman  or  tenant  farmer,  and  to  check  the 
continual  and  progressive  drifting  of  the  agricultural  labourer 
from  the  villages  that  bred  him  into  the  maw  of  the  great  cities, 

'  In  illustration  of  the  advantages  enjoyed  by  the  foreign  over  the  British 
farmer  the  reader  is  referred  to  Appendix  II. 


APRIL  171 

whence  for  the  most  part  he  does  not  return.  *  The  inevitable 
issues  of  Free  Trade  which  must  be  faced  in  all  their  logical 
completeness,'  and  such  phrases,  sound  very  fine  and  conclusive  in 
the  mouths  of  platform  speakers,  but  to  the  minds  of  many  people 
it  is  a  question  whether  doctrines  cannot  be  driven  too  far, 
and  whether  it  is  worth  while  to  sacrifice  classes  which  from  the 
beginning  of  its  history  have  been  the  pith  and  marrow  of  England 
to  a  blind  and  narrow  spirit  of  fiscal  and  political  consistency. 

Whatever  may  be  the  theoretical  rights  and  wrongs  of  this  Free 
Trade,  certainly  to  some  of  us  it  does  seem  a  matter  of  regret  and 
danger  that  the  system  should  have  dealt  so  fatal  and  sweeping  a 
blow  to  agriculture  and  to  all  connected  with  the  land.  It  is  curious 
to  reflect  also  that  a  tax  so  small  that  the  consumer  would  scarcely 
feel  it,  a  tax  which  might  merely  clip  a  tithe  from  the  swollen 
profits  of  some  thousands  of  middlemen,  besides  largely  benefiting 
the  Exchequer,  would  suffice,  in  most  cases,  to  nullify  these  very 
substantial  evils.  Yet  such  salvation  is,  and  is  likely  to  remain, 
impossible,  not  because  it  might  work  a  practical  hardship,  but  for 
the  simple  reason  that  it  would  offend  against  a  modern  law  of 
the  Medes  and  Persians  and  excite  bitter  prejudice  among  the 
electorate.  So  there  the  case  stands ;  alone  amidst  the  peoples  of 
the  earth  we  have  set  this  King  Stork  to  rule  over  us,  and — we 
must  feed  him.  At  present  he  is  engaged  chiefly  in  depleting  and 
digesting  the  rural  interests.  When  he  has  finished  with  them  ; 
when  the  strike  system  has  become  perfected ;  when,  too,  in  another 
score  of  years  America  and  Germany,  and  possibly  India,  Japan  and 
the  Colonies,  have  really  found  their  feet  as  producing  manufac- 
turers, and  gone  into  serious  competition  with  the  British  towns 
and  their  trades,  as  already  they  are  threatening  to  do — then, 
perhaps,  we  shall  hear  another  frog  begin  to  scream  in  those 
remorseless  mandibles. 

To  show  how  extraordinarily  the  price  of  the  different  kinds 
of  grain  may  vary  in  the  course  of  a  century,  I  will  here  copy  out 
the  contents  of  a  tablet  which  is  let  into  the  front  of  a  house 
belonging  to  this  estate  in  Bungay. 


172  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Prices  of  Grain  per  Coomb,  April  3,  1800 

C      s.     d. 
Wheat  .         .  .         .         .         .         .         .320 

Barley i      15     o 

Malt I      18     o 

Pease.         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  2     10     o 

Beans.         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  i     10    o 

Oats 140 

Hay,  per  cwt.       .         .         .         .         .         .         .076 

Straw 036 

From  this  table  it  appears  that  at  Bungay  market  in  1800 
wheat  was  6/.  45.  the  quarter,  barley  was  3/.  ioj-,  the  quarter,  and 
oats  were  2/.  Sj".  To  go  to  the  other  extreme  of  the  scale,  I  find 
that,  according  to  the  average  'Gazette '  prices  in  the  year  1895, 
wheat  was  i/.  3^.  \d.  a  quarter,  barley  was  i/.  i^".  i\d.  a  quarter, 
and  oats  were  14J.  dd.  a  quarter.  But  these  figures  do  not  show 
all  the  difference,  since  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  in  the  year  1800 
gold  was  scarcer  and  the  purchasing  power  of  money  greater  than 
is  the  case  to-day. 

In  walking  along  one  of  the  roads  this  afternoon  I  noticed 
that  the  boys,  or  more  probably  the  hobbledehoys,  have  again  been 
breaking  down  the  little  hawthorns  left  to  grow  in  the  hedgerows. 
Ever  since  I  began  to  farm  I  have  been  endeavouring  to  rear  up 
shoots  at  regular  intervals  in  the  hedges,  so  that  in  time  they  might 
make  fine  may-trees.  Fifty  or  sixty  years  ago  an  old  man  in  this 
parish  known  as  Rough  Jimmy,  a  very  curious  character,  in 
trimming  a  fence  belonging  to  the  Hall  estate  which  borders  the 
Church  lane,  left  certain  shoots  in  this  fashion,  with  the  result  that 
in  June  the  entire  roadway  is  splendid  in  trees  white  with  haw- 
thorn bloom,-although  unfortunately  the  strangling  ivy  has  choked 
one  or  two  of  them. 

A  generation  hence  I  hope  that  owing  to  my  efforts  such  a 
spectacle  will  be  more  common  in  this  village,  though  chiefly,  I 
fear,  in  the  field  hedges  and  by  the  side  of  private  paths.  Along 
the  main  road  many  of  the  young  trees  do  not  survive,  since  when 
they  get  to  a  noticeable  size  the  gilded  youth  of  Ditchingham 
and  Bungay  batter  them  down  with  sticks,  or  slash  them  through 


APRIL  173 

with  knives.  It  is  a  sight  that  moves  me  to  indignation.  Two 
of  the  fields  where  these  trees  were  growing  nicely  I  have  since 
let  in  allotments,  and  now  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  the  thrifty 
husbandmen  who  hire  them  have  trimmed  the  saplings  to  the 
shape  of  round  bushes,  partly  perhaps  from  a  sense  of  neatness, 
but  more,  as  I  believe,  because  they  think  that  the  white- 
thorns as  they  increase  will  cast  some  shadow  on  their  land. 

Picturesque  as  they  may  be,  there  is  no  doubt  that  forest  trees 
in  hedgerows,  and  especially  elms,  are  very  mischievous  in  this 
respect,  as  any  one  who  has  observed  the  effect  of  a  line  of  them 
apon  a  growing  crop  can  testify.  With  the  single  exception  of 
grass,  where  the  shade  they  give  to  cattle  in  summer  and  the 
protection  from  winds  in  winter  amply  compensate  for  the  de- 
preciation in  quality  of  the  herbage  within  reach  of  their  drip 
and  shadow,  there  is  no  crop  that  does  not  suffer  much  from  the 
influence  of  hedgerow  timber.  Oak  does  the  least  damage,  and 
elms  and  ash  do  the  most,  because  their  roots  run  so  fleet  that  for 
many  yards  round  about  each  tree  sucks  the  goodness  from  the  soil. 
Beech — that  lady  of  the  forest — as  I  think,  of  all  timbers  the 
most  feminine  in  appearance,  is  also  the  most  poisonous,  since 
the  drip  from  it  seems  to  have  the  effect  of  destroying  under- 
growth of  whatever  nature.  Owing  perhaps  to  its  spreading 
nature,  or  to  the  poor  quality  of  the  wood,  this  tree,  however,  is 
never  planted  in  fences,  at  any  rate  in  our  neighbourhood. 

This  morning  I  inspected  the  sheep,  and  found  that  they  are 
not  yet  really  recovered  from  their  recent  misfortunes.  Some  of 
the  lambs  seem  still  weakly  and  half-crippled,  while  several  of  the 
ewes  are  suffering  from  dreadful  colds,  which  necessitate  their  being 
caught  and  the  clearing  out  of  their  nostrils.  It  is  a  ridiculous 
but  pathetic  sight  to  see  an  old  ewe  having  her  nose  sympa- 
thetically wiped  by  Hood  armed  with  a  wisp  of  rough  clover  hay. 

April  30. — Yesterday  was  fine  and  warm,  and  the  horses  were 
employed  in  ploughing  and  in  carting  home  the  faggots  which  have 
been  cut  upon  the  Bath  Hills. 


174  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

To-day  there  is  a  gale  from  the  sou'-west.  In  the  morning  the 
farrier  came  to  perform  a  rather  serious  operation  upon  two 
yearling  colts.  Within  five  minutes  of  its  conclusion  I  saw  one 
of  them  eating  hay,  and  Fairhead  told  me  that  the  other  com- 
menced to  feed  so  soon  as  it  had  struggled  on  to  its  legs.  This 
strikes  me  as  an  instructive  commentary  upon  the  often  argued 
point  as  to  whether  or  no  animals  feel  pain  as  intensely  as  human 
beings.  It  must  be  remembered  that  in  their  case  anaesthetics 
are  not  employed,  and  I  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  answer  to 
the  question  is — in  diplomatic  phrase — in  the  negative.  Even 
after  having  a  double  tooth  out  or  a  finger-nail  removed,  no  man — at 
least  no  white  man — could  sit  down  and  enjoy  an  immediate  lunch. 
I  have,  however,  known  cases  of  Zulus  sitting  apparently  uncon- 
cerned while  boiling  water  from  a  kettle  was  poured  into  an  open 
wound  ;  but  I  believe  that  this  is  not  because  they  are  insensible  to 
pain,  but  owing  to  the  natural  heroism  of  their  characters,  which 
forbids  them  to  show  any  outward  sign  of  suffering.  Also  I  have 
known  native  women  perform  feats  under  trying  domestic  circum- 
stances which,  if  narrated,  would  appear  almost  incredible.  To 
what  this  hardiness  is  owing  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  say ;  the 
question  is  one  for  medical  men. 

It  is,  however,  satisfactory  to  be  able  to  conclude  that  dumb 
animals  do  not  suffer  in  the  same  proportion  as  more  highly 
organised  and  nervous  creatures;  for,  otherwise,  between  birth 
and  the  but^.  '^er  in  many  instances  they  would  be  called  upon  to 
endure  more  than  it  is  pleasant  to  contemplate. 

On  the  farm  the  faggot-carting  and  ploughing  are  going  on,  but 
I  have  not  seen  much  of  them,  as  to-day  has  been  one  of  political 
excitement.  Having  received  an  urgent  note  from  a  friend  and 
neighbour  informing  me  that  he  was  to  take  the  chair  to-night 
at  a  meeting  in  support  of  Mr.  Holmes  in  his  own  parish,  and 
requesting  my  assistance,  I  struggled  gallantly  against  the  gale 
on  a  bicycle  to  his  house  to  tell  him  that  I  had  already  promised 
to  speak  elsewhere.  As  this  intelligence  seemed  to  disappoint 
him,  I  added  that  it  was  a  matter  of  complete  indifference  to  me 


APRIL  175 

where  I  spoke,  and  that  if  only  he  would  undertake  to  arrange 
matters  with  the  authorities  in  Norwich,  I  should  be  delighted 
to  support  him  to  the  best  of  my  poor  ability.  On  hearing  after- 
wards that  this  was  done,  I  started  about  7.30  (one  of  the  delights 
of  political  meetings  is  that  you  very  seldom  get  any  dinner),  and, 
having  driven  to  the  appointed  school-house,  sent  my  cart  to  be 
stabled  at  the  Hall,  a  mile  and  a  half  away.  Presently  arrived 
my  friend,  and  we  stood  for  a  while  talking  amid  the  small  but 
excited  crowd  which  on  these  occasions  always  gathers  round  the 
doors.     Soon,  however,  I  was   aroused   by   an    indignant   voice 

exclaiming,  '  Why  are  you  here,  sir  ?     Why  ain't  you  at  D ?  ' 

and  turned  to  find  myself  confronted  by  the  agent  with  whom 

without  doubt  I  had  arranged  to  appear  at  D on  this  very  day 

and  hour.  I  explained  humbly  that  it  was  not  my  fault,  whereon 
there  arose  what  may  be  called  a  slight  altercation. 

You  must   go  to   D ,'   said  the  justly  indignant  agent ; 

'  there  is  no  one  to  speak  there  ;  the  meeting  will  come  to  an  end 
if  you  don't  before  ever  the  candidate  gets  round.  What's  the 
use  of  my  making  arrangements  when  you  gentlemen  go  and 
upset  them  ? ' 

Again,  though  with  a  certain  sense  of  guilt,  I  protested  that 
whoever's  fault  this  unhappy  state  of  affairs  might  be,  it  was  not 
mine,  adding  further  that  as  I  had  sent  my  trap  away  I  had  now 
no  means  of  getting  to  D . 

*  Means  ! '  he  replied  wrathfuUy,  at  the  same  time  proffering  me 
a  very  low  bicycle  without  a  lamp  (it  was  growing  pitch  dark,  and  I 
am  somewhat  long  in  the  leg) ;  'jump  on  this  and  be  off  at  once.' 

*  What  ! '  I  urged,  *  ride  a  strange  bicycle  in  the  dark  and  in 
this  coat?' 

*  Oh,  never  mind  the  coat,'  he  answered  ;  '  take  it  off.' 

Then  I  struck,  alleging  with  perfect  truth  that  every  ounce  of 

zeal  which  I  possessed  for  the  success  of  the  D meeting  was  not 

sufficient  to  urge  me  to  this  adventure,  complimentary  as  might  be 
his  anxiety  for  my  presence.  Ultimately,  to  cut  a  long  story  short, 
we  compromised,  and  I  found  a  friendly  farmer  to  drive  me  in  his 


176  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

gig  to  the  Hall,  where  my  horse  was  put  up,  whence  in  due  course  I 

made  my  way  to  D .     On  entering  the  schoolroom,  which  was 

well  filled,  I  found  an  unfortunate  friend,  the  only  speaker  present 
except  the  chairman,  addressing  the  meeting.  I  say  unfortunate, 
because  clearly  he  had  been  thus  engaged  for  about  three-quarters 
of  an  hour.  As  I  came  in  he  cast  a  despairing  glance  towards  the 
door,  and  his  face  became  suffused  with  smiles. 

'  Gentlemen,'  he  said  in  joyous  tones,  *  I  will  detain  you  no 
longer,  since  here  is  my  friend,  and  yours,'  &c.,  &c.,  &c. 

*For  Heaven's  sake,  keep  it  up,'  I  whispered  back,  'until  I 
have  had  time  to  look  through  the  candidates'  addresses,'  and, 
responding  like  a  hero,  he  kept  it  up. 

Then  I  began.  Believing  that  the  candidate  would  not  be 
able  to  arrive  for  at  least  another  hour,  and  as  there  was  no  one 
else  to  speak,  I  laid  my  plans  accordingly ;  that  is  to  say,  I  adopted 
the  clerical  method  of  oratory. 

Taking  each  clause  of  Mr.  Holmes's  address  as  a  text,  I 
preached  upon  it  to  the  most  enormous  length  :  at  what  length 
may  be  guessed  when  I  state  that  I  had  only  waded  through  three 
paragraphs  before  the  candidate  really  did  arrive.  By  that  time 
I  was  callous ;  indeed,  I  believe  that,  if  necessary,  I  could  have 
gone  on  for  another  two  hours,  since,  when  I  had  come  to  the 
end  of  the  address  of  Mr.  Holmes,  there  was  that  of  his  opponent, 
Mr.  Soames,  to  fall  back  upon ;  after  which  I  might  have  perorated. 

I  doubt  whether  to  any  one  with  an  eye  to  humour  there  are 
many  things  more  amusing  than  a  rural  election  meeting.  For 
instance,  there  is  the  ecstatic  gentleman  who,  on  these  occasions, 
is  generally  to  be  found  standing  outside  the  door,  and  murmuring 
at  intervals,  his  red  face  turned  to  the  heavens  as  though  he  were 
addressing  the  stars,  '  'olmes  for  ever  !  'olmes  for  ever  !  A  Norfolk 
man  for  Norfolk.'  Then  with  a  sudden  welling-up  of  enthusiasm, 
and  fixing  his  eye  upon  the  planet  Jupiter,  '  Vote  for  'olmes,  old 
feller,  and  you  won't  do  wrong  !     I  say  vote  for  'olmes  ! ' 

For  true  and  earnest  political  enthusiasm,  however,  I  think  he 
is  surpassed  by  the  intelligent  elector  who  becomes  so  moved  at 


APRIL  177 

the  speaker's  eloquence  that  he  punctuates  his  impassioned  periods 
with  'Ah,  that's  true.  You've  got  it  this  time,  sir';  or  *Let 
'em  have  it,  the  varmints ' ;  or,  '  Don't  you  be  afraid,  we'll  see  to 
that.'  With  skill  and  care  such  a  listener  can  be  worked  up  by  an 
orator  of  experience  till  he  becomes  a  fairly  effective  imitation 
of  the  Greek  Chorus.  What  is  more,  he  is  of  considerable  assistance 
at  a  village  meeting,  since  generally  he  is  something  of  a  reader 
and  a  thinker,  and  represents  a  section  of  local  opinion. 

Such  things  as  accounts  of  political  meetings  of  this  character 
sound  trivial  enough  when  set  down  in  black  and  white,  but  to  my 
mind  they  have  their  interest,  and  perhaps  those  who  read  of  them 
a  century  or  two  hence,  when  everything  is  totally  changed,  will 
be  of  the  same  opinion.  How  valuable  to  us  are  those  scraps  of 
local  information  as  to  life  and  manners  in  past  ages  that  chance 
to  have  survived  to  the  present  day  !  How  eagerly  do  we  search 
through  registers,  or  court  rolls,  or  what  not,  to  find  anything  of 
human  interest,  anything  that  gives  us  an  insight  into  the  actual 
life  of  times  bygone,  for,  alas  !  the  endless  processions  of  names  and 
dates  tell  but  little.  Why  is  Pepys  so  priceless  an  author  if  it 
is  not  because,  among  other  things,  he  sets  down  what  he  saw 
from  day  to  day,  portraying  with  his  pen  the  life  about  him,  as 
Hogarth  portrayed  it  with  his  pencil,  if  in  a  more  genial  spirit  ? 

Nowadays  the  novel  is  almost  everything.  If  a  matter  is  to  be 
read  of,  it  must  be  spiced  and  tricked  out  with  romance.  But, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  I  imagine  that  the  generations  to  come  will 
study  our  facts  rather  than  our  fiction.  It  may  be  replied  that  if 
they  have  a  mind  this  way  they  can  turn  to  the  daily  press  of  the 
age  whereof  they  wish  to  learn,  but  I  think  that  the  vastness  of 
such  a  task  will  appal  the  boldest.  Doubtless  commentators  and 
literary  precis-writers  will  spring  up  who  will  boil  down  the  events 
of  each  past  period  for  the  benefit  of  their  contemporaries,  but,  at 
the  best,  all  such  narratives  must  lack  the  personal  quality  which 
alone  can  make  them  entertaining.  They  will  be  to  the  future 
very  much  what  the  church  registers  of  three  centuries  ago  are  to 
us  to-day — a  mine  for  the  curious  to  dig  in  and  nothing  more. 

N 


7^  A   FARMER'S    YEAk 


MAY 

May  I.- -By  common  and  time-consecrated  repute  the  first  of 
May  is  the  beginning  of  summer,  and,  unless  tradition  lies,  as 
seems  probable,  at  that  date  our  forefathers  used  to  picnic  in  the 
open  and  dance  about  poles  wreathed  with  flowers,  although  it 
must  be  remembered  that  under  the  Old  Style  their  May-day 
fell  two  weeks  later  than  our  own.  They  would  scarcely  do  it 
now,  for  nine  May-days,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  nine  Mays  out 
often  are  distinguished  by  abominable  and  frigid  weather,  though 
primroses  and,  where  they  grow  wild,  daffodils  are  plentiful  enough. 
As  for  the  may  itself,  it  rarely  appears  in  any  quantity  until  the 
end  of  the  month. 

To-day  we  are  ploughing  and  carting  stones  off  the  light  glebe 
land  for  the  roads.  I  suppose  that  for  hundreds  of  years  the 
farmers  of  this  land  have  taken  from  it  an  annual  crop  of  stones, 
and  still,  season  by  season,  more  appear.  Where  do  they  all  come 
from,  and  why  do  they  continue  to  work  up  to  the  top  without 
appreciably  lowering  the  level  of  the  land  ?  No  doubt  geologists 
can  explain  this  phenomenon,  but  to  an  ordinary  ignoramus  like 
myself  it  is  a  mystery.  Indeed,  the  existence  on  much  the  same 
level  and  in  close  proximity  of  stretches  of  soil  sandy  in  nature  and 
full  of  flint,  and  other  stretches  stiff"  at  top  with  a  substratum  of  dense 
blue  clay,  seems  difficult  to  understand.  I  suppose  that  it  has  to 
do  with  the  laying  bare  of  various  strata  in  far  past  ages  by  the 
action  of  floods  or  of  the  ocean. 

To-day,  also,  we  have  carted  twenty-five  coomb  of  beans,  sold 
at  i^s.  6d.  a  coomb,  an  advance  of  two  shillings  on  last  year's 
price.      These   beans  have  to   be   placed  at  Loddon,   six  miles 


MAY  179 

away,  which  is  practically  a  day's  journey  for  a  man  and  horses. 
Here  the  practice  is  that  the  seller  must  deliver  to  the  purchaser 
unless  he  despatches  the  stuff  by  train  under  special  arrangement, 
in  which  case  he  delivers  at  the  station.  To-day,  too,  the  brown 
mare  produced  her  foal  in  safety. 

May  3. — This  morning  Hood  sold  twenty-five  coomb  (twelve 
and  a  half  quarters)  of  wheat  at  forty-nine  shillings  a  quarter^  so 
it  seems  that  he  was  justified  in  refusing  forty-eight  shillings  last 
week.  It  is  a  curious  advance  upon  the  prices  of  recent  years.  I 
wonder  what  would  happen  in  this  country  in  the  event  of  a  really 
earnest  and  prolonged  war  between,  let  us  say,  Great  Britain 
opposed  to  France  and  Russia,  which  probably  would  entail 
subsidiary  wars  in  every  quarter  of  the  world.  There  is  no  great 
bulk  of  wheat  kept  in  England,  as  it  is  a  commodity  apt  to 
deteriorate  in  warehouses  unless  very  carefully  and  scientifically 
managed,  and  Governments  seem  to  set  their  faces  against  any 
system  of  national  granaries,  for  reasons  which  are  sufficiently 
obvious  and  familiar  to  the  student  of  Roman  history.  Pharaoh, 
who  was  an  autocrat  living  in  a  dry  climate,  with  the  assistance  of 
an  exceptionally  able  and  honest  minister,  was  in  a  position  to 
manage  such  granaries  satisfactorily,  but  I  greatly  doubt  if  this 
would  be  so  in  the  case  of  any  given  set  of  party  politicians  in 
power  and  with  the  fear  of  an  election  before  their  eyes.  As  no 
such  stores  do  or  are  likely  to  exist,  the  possibilities  in  the  event 
of  war  are  somewhat  terrifying.  Even  if  our  fleet  should  prove 
strong  enough  to  keep  the  seas  perfectly  open  against  a  combina- 
tion of  foreign  Powers,  which,  in  the  opinion  of  many  experts,  such 
as  Lord  Charles  .  Beresford,  seems  doubtful,  what  fleets  could 
control  the  ingenious  machinations  of  the  foreign  speculator  in 
grain?  And  if,  owing  to  a  variety  of  causes,  corn  went  to  a 
hundred  shillings  a  quarter,  what  would  be  the  result  in  a  country 
full  of  some  millions  of  independent  (  and  hungry)  voters  ?  On 
that  black  sheet  of  the  future  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine 
three  words,  ominous  as  those  of  the  writing  on  the  wall. 

N  2 


i8o  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

They  are: 

Peace  with  Dishonour. 

Peace,  not  because  the  ancient  strength  of  England  is  broken, 
but  because  its  citizens  are  wrath  with  hunger  and  have  the  power 
to  make  their  rage  felt  in  high  places.  Absit  oinen  !  may  I  be 
wrong ;  at  least  may  I  not  live  to  see  the  day.  Still,  the  most 
ardent  lover  of  democracy  will  admit  that  our  present  system  has 
its  dangers,  especially  in  a  narrow  land  where  the  production  of 
food-stuffs,  and  notably  of  corn,  is  in  practice  discouraged. 

In  America  the  case  is  different.  Were  America  cut  off  from 
any  intercourse  with  the  outside  world  for  a  long  period  of  time  it 
could  still  produce  enough  food  to  feed  itself. 

It  is  curious  to  notice  the  change  caused  in  the  aspect  of  the 
country  by  the  recent  rains  and  mild  weather  ;  the  growth  of  the 
grass  and  the  bursting  of  the  leaves  are  almost  visible.  To-day  on 
the  Bath  Hills  I  saw  a  sure  sign  that  the  winter  is  over  and  past — 
a  grass-snake  basking  in  the  sun.  He  was  a  fine  fellow,  over  two  feet 
long  I  should  say,  and  when,  resisting  the  first  instinctive  impulse 
to  kill  him,  which  is  natural  to  anyone  who,  like  myself,  has  lived 
in  a  land  of  poisonous  snakes,  I  contented  myself  with  stirring 
him  up  with  my  spud,  he  retreated  up  hill  till  he  was  tired,  then, 
having  apparently  no  hole  to  go  to,  turned  round  and  hissed  at  me 
with  open  mouth  and  flickering  tongue.  Indeed,  had  he  been  a 
cobra  instead  of  a  poor  painted  worm  he  could  not  have  looked 
more  ferocious.  I  thought  of  holding  out  my  hand  to  see  if  he  would 
strike  at  it  with  some  hereditary  recollection  of  past  aeons,  when 
his  forefathers  were  poisonous,  but  coming  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  would  be  better  to  persuade  some  one  else  to  try  this  experiment, 
since  I  might  possibly  have  made  a  mistake  as  to  the  breed,  I 
refrained  and  went  away. 

Writing  of  cobras  reminds  me  of  an  incident  which  is  perhaps 
worth  recording,  although  I  have  little  business  to  introduce  it  here. 

Once,  many  years  ago,  I  was  riding  in  search  of  small  game 
upon  the  veld  in  the  Transvaal  when  a  hare  jumped  up  before 
me.     Halting  the  horse,  I  shot  at  it  from  the  saddle,  and  with  the 


MA  Y  i8r 

second  barrel  broke  one  of  its  hind  legs  and  injured  the  other. 
Springing  from  my  horse,  and  without  reloading  the  gun,  I  ran 
to  catch  it,  but  as  it  could  still  travel  faster  than  I'did,  I  saw 
with  chagrin  that  it  would  reach  a  hole  for  which  it  was  heading 
(in  Africa  these  hares  go  to  ground  if  pressed)  before  I  was 
able  to  overtake  it.  Presently  it  came  to  the  hole,  but,  in- 
stead of  bolting  down  it,  sat  quite  still  upon  the  hither  side. 
Thinking  that  the  animal  was  expiring,  I  crept  up  cautiously  and 
stretched  out  my  hand  to  seize  it.  The  next  instant  I  received 
one  of  the  sharpest  shocks  that  I  can  remember  to  have  ex- 
perienced, for,  on  the  other  side  of  the  hole,  within  about  four 
feet  of  my  face,  like  some  child  of  an  evil  magic,  there  rose  up 
suddenly  the  hugest  cobra  ('ringhals  '  I  think  the  Boers  call  it) 
that  I  have  ever  seen.  The  reptile,  which  appeared  to  me  to  be 
about  six  feet  long,  stood  upon  his  coiled  tail  and,  puffing  out  his 
horrible  and  deadly  hood,  flickered  his  tongue  and  spat  upon  me. 
There  was  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have  struck  me  also, 
since  for  the  moment  I  seemed  paralysed  and  did  not  move.  Re- 
covering myself,  I  sprang  backwards  and  began  to  search  in  my 
pocket  for  a  cartridge  to  load  my  gun,  whereon  the  great  snake, 
sinking  down  again,  with  a  single  swift  movement  vanished  into  the 
hole,  which  was  between  it  and  me. 

Now,  as  the  '  ringhals '  had  gone,  I  thought  that  at  any  rate  I 
might  as  well  secure  the  hare,  which  all  this  while,  petrified  with 
terror,  had  been  crouched  by  the  top  of  the  hole.  So  once  again 
I  leant  towards  the  creature.  It  heard  me  and  tried  to  run  away, 
but  evidently  was  too  weak.  Then  it  looked  first  back  at  me  and 
next  at  the  burrow  down  which  the  snake  had  vanished,  and,  seem- 
ing to  decide  finally  that  the  mercies  of  a  cobra  are  greater  than  the 
mercies  of  man,  it  uttered  a  scream  and  followed  the  reptile  into 
the  hole.  I  stood  by  and  listened.  Presently  from  under  the 
earth  came  the  sound  of  a  rush  and  a  scuffle,  followed  by  another 
pitiful  scream.     Then  all  was  still. 

The  butcher  at  Bungay  has  offered  Hood  80/.  for  four  of  the 
Irish  bullocks  at  Baker's,  which  he  has  refused,  as  he  is  of  opinion 


1 82  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

that  they  are  worth  85/.  In  the  end  it  was  agreed  that  the  offer 
should  stand  open  till  Friday,  so  as  to  give  both  parties  an  oppor- 
tunity of  thinking  it  over. 

May  4. — To-day  the  weather  is  squally  with  heavy  showers  of 
rain.  In  the  Home  Barn  I  found  the  curious  village  character 
known  as  Rough  Jimmy,  a  weird-looking  and  picturesque  old  man, 
with  a  strongly  marked  countenance  and  flying  locks  of  iron-grey 
hair,  seated  on  a  sack  by  the  open  door  and  employed  in  splitting 
broaches  to  be  used  for  thatching  stacks.  This  is  the  process  of 
broach-splitting  :  First  the  hazel  or  ash  rod  is  measured  by  another 
to  a  length  of  about  three  feet,  at  which  it  is  chopped  upon  a  block. 
Next  the  edge  of  the  bill  is  set  across  the  end  and  tapped  gently 
so  that  it  enters  the  wood.  Then  it  is  levered  sideways  and 
twisted  with  the  hand  until,  if  there  are  not  too  many  knots,  the 
rod  splits  neatly  in  half.  This  process  is  repeated  with  the 
severed  halves,  so  that  each  rod  makes  four  broaches,  while  the 
trimmed  off  ends  are  used  for  firing.  In  bygone  years  Rough 
Jimmy  was  the  most  expert  woodman  in  the  parish,  but  now  he 
can  only  do  such  jobs  as  this.  Peering  up  from  the  seat  on  the 
sack,  for  he  is  half  blind,  the  old  fellow  said : 

*  A  lowerin'  time,  squire ;  a  rare  laaring  time.  There'll  be  a 
hay  crop  now.     Rainy  May,  plenty  of  hay.' 

After  this  we  had  a  conversation.  He  told  me  that  he  remem- 
bered flour  at  five  shillings  a  stone,  and  the  time  when  his  father 
sold  his  wheat  at  two  guineas  a  coomb,  '  and  could  have  sold  a 
thousand  coomb  if  he  had  had  it.' 

Asking  me  about  the  war,  he  said  :  *  Poor  Spain,  she's  chosen 
a  rum  place  to  fight  with,  she  hev — Amurica.  All  the  best  of 
the  earth  go  there,  they  du— English,  Scotch,  and  that  like.  I've 
got  a  son  in  South  Africa,  I  hev,  though  I  haven't  seen  him  for 
many  yeers,  and  never  sh'an't  no  more.  He  gets  on  won'erful 
well,  he  du.  Began  as  a  mason  working  on  a  bridge,  and  is  his 
own  master  now,  so  I  onderstand,  with  lots  of  land,  cattle,  black 
men,  and  bacca  plants.' 


MAY  183 

Here,  I  thought  to  myself  as  I  walked  away,  is  a  fine  instance 
of  the  contrast  between  the  old  country  and  the  new,  and  of  the 
good  fortune  of  those  who  are  bold  enough  to  break  their  ties  and 
seek  their  fate  in  the  Colonies.  The  father,  bent  with  years, 
roughly  clad  and  half  blind,  seated  on  my  barn-floor  splitting 
broaches  for  a  few  pence,  or,  as  I  have  seen  him  again  and  again, 
standing  all  day  in  the  wild  December  weather  at  the  corner  of  a 
covert  to  prevent  the  pheasants  from  breaking  out,  and  the  son 
who  is  in  South  Africa  with  plenty  of  '  land,  cattle,  black  men, 
and  bacca  plants.' 

I  do  not  gather,  however,  that  distance  makes  the  heart  more 
filial.  I  imagine  that  letters  are  few  and  far  between,  and  but 
little  of  the  produce  of  the  black  men  and  the  bacca  plants  flows 
into  the  old  man's  pocket. 

We  are  cursed  with  an  egg-eating  turkey.  As  I  was  sitting 
at  lunch  I  observed  a  turkey-hen  running  about  the  lawn  with 
what  I  took  to  be  a  frog  in  its  beak,  which  it  was  making  violent 
efforts  to  swallow.  On  investigation  I  found  that  it  was  not  a 
frog  but  an  egg.  It  seems  that  this  unnatural  creature  lays  eggs 
with  unusually  thin  shells,  and  having  chanced  to  crush  one  by 
sitting  on  it,  was  tempted,  and  found  it  uncommonly  good  to  eat. 
From  that  day  she  began  to  devour  every  egg  she  laid,  but  being 
conscious  of  her  guilt,  she  first  carries  them  to  a  distance,  where 
she  thinks  that  she  will  not  be  observed.  That  is  why  she  appeared 
upon  the  lawn,  which  at  luncheon-time,  when  the  gardeners  are 
at  dinner,  is  a  secluded  spot  suitable  for  the  commission  of  crime. 
She  did  not  know  that  justice  lurked  behind  the  dining-room 
windows,  and  that  after  judgment  comes  execution. 

In  to-day's  Times  I  see  that  a  deputation  waited  upon  Mr. 
Chaplin,  the  President  of  the  Local  Government  Board,  to  urge, 
amongst  other  things,  the  prohibition  of  the  artificial  colouring  of 
margarine  to  resemble  or  imitate  butter,  and  the  prohibition  of 
the  mixing  of  margarine  and  butter  for  sale.  From  Mr.  Chaplin 
they  got  uncommonly  cold  comfort.  He  told  them  that  he  had 
'  heard  the  arguments  of  the  other  side,'  and  that  if  this  fraudulent 


1 84  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

colouring — for  the  object  of  the  colouring  is  fraud — were  pro- 
hibited, it  was  urged  that  it  would  'practically  destroy  the  trade.' 
He  intimated  in  addition  that  whatever  might  be  the  rights  of 
the  matter,  the  Government  had  no  time  to  deal  with  it. 

It  is  impossible  to  comment  upon  these  strange  statements 
better  or  more  clearly  than  does  the  Times  in  an  admirable  lead- 
mg  article.  Therefore,  with  proper  acknowledgments,  I  take  the 
liberty  to  quote  a  few  lines  from  that  article. 

*  Is  it  not  rather  hard  on  the  man  who  wants  to  get  butter 
that  he  should  have  to  eat  margarine,  because  the  man  who  wants 
margarine  will  not  eat  it  unless  it  is  made  to  look  like  butter  ? 
If  either  of  the  two  trades  is  to  suffer  injury,  is  it  to  be  the  trade 
which  wishes  to  sell  butter  under  the  name  of  butter,  or  the  trade 
which — to  please  its  customers — wishes  to  sell  margarine  made  to 
look  as  like  butter  as  possible  ? '  . 

Yes,  and  is  it  not  rather  hard  on  the  unfortunate  British 
farmer,  who,  like  myself,  makes  honest  butter  out  of  cream  and 
nothing  else,  that  he  should  have  to  compete  with  an  article 
cunningly  coloured  to  resemble  it,  but  compounded  of  beef 
stearine,  arachis.oil,  and  pork  fat  ?  Is  it  not  also  rather  hard  that 
such  an  answer  should  be  given  to  an  influential  deputation  by  a 
Minister  supposed  to  sympathise  with  the  distresses  of  farmers  ? 
Of  course  everybody  understands  that,  like  so  many  other  things, 
this  is  a  question  of  policy,  and  that  it  is  supposed  more  support 
would  be  lost  by  a  measure  which  interfered  with  the  town  trade  in 
margarine  than  might  be  gained  by  securing  a  fair  market  to  the 
country  farmer,  and  to  the  consumer  that  if  he  asks  for  butter  and 
pays  for  butter  he  should  get  butter.  Well,  this  is  the  kind  of  thing 
that  we  agriculturists  have  to  fight  against,  but  I  doubt  whether 
Mr.  Chaplin's  answer  will  gain  many  votes  for  Mr.  Holmes  at 
the  pending  South  Norfolk  election. 

May  6. — Yesterday  opened  fine,  but  in  the  afternoon  it  came 
on  to  pour,  which,  as  there  was  a  confirmation  in  the  church  of 
this  parish  for  the  first  time  for  many  years,  proved  very  incon- 


MAY  185 

venient.  Hood  sold  the  remainder  of  my  wheat— about  sixty 
coomb— at  forty-nine  shillings  the  quarter.  It  has  been  a  little 
higher,  and  will  very  likely  be  higher  again,  but  in  such  a  tricky 
and  artificial  market  as  that  which  exists  for  corn  I  think  it  best 
to  take  what  I  can  get  and  be  thankful. 

To-day  we  are  baulking  up  the  swede  land  and  gilling  trees 
from  the  Bath  Hills.  Certainly  a  timber  gill  is  a  wonderfully 
well-designed  though  a  very  simple  implement.  It  is  worked 
thus.  First  the  gill,  which  is  a  kind  of  very  high-wheeled  cart, 
made  to  carry  its  load  beneath  the  axle  instead  of  above  it,  is  run 
over  the  tree  to  be  removed.  Then  the  horse,  which  drags  it  by 
means  of  chains  fastened  to  hooks  at  the  end  of  shafts,  or 
sometimes  to  a  pole  resembling  that  which  in  Africa  we  call  a 
dissel-boom,  is  taken  off,  and  the  shafts  are  thrust  backwards  till 
they  stand  pointing  to  the  sky.  Next  the  chains  are  made  fast 
round  the  bole  of  the  tree  and  drawn  up  taut  to  the  arched  and 
ironed  timber  axle.  Then,  if  the  load  be  moderate,  one,  or  if 
heavy,  two  men,  with  the  help  of  the  leverage  afforded  by  the 
length  of  the  shafts,  drag  them  down,  and  the  great  tree  swings  up 
from  the  ground.  Or  should  it  be  too  weighty  for  their  efforts,  the 
aid  of  a  horse  is  called  in.  Next,  the  load  having  been  arranged  so 
that  it  balances,  the  hooks  are  slipped  through  the  eye,  and  away 
walks  the  horse,  dragging  after  him  a  baulk  of  timber  that  in  many 
cases  one  would  have  believed  to  be  quite  beyond  his  strength. 

To-day  I  was  obliged  to  do  some  canvassing,  a  task  which  I 
particularly  detest.  I  think  that  it  is  hateful  to  ask  anybody  for 
anything,  votes  not  excluded,  more  especially  if  the  asker  chances  to 
be  in  a  position  of  authority  or  advantage  towards  the  person  asked. 
It  is  this  wholesale  begging,  and  all  the  humbug  attendant  on  it, 
that  makes  standing  for  Parliament  so  peculiarly  arduous  an 
undertaking.  I  cannot  conceive  why,  with  our  present  enlarged 
electorate,  personal  canvassing  is  allowed  to  remain  legal,  except  it 
be  from  the  idea  that  the  party  which  proposed  or  carried  its 
abolition  would  suffer  at  the  polls,  as  the  institution  is  believed  to 
be  popular — among  the  canvassed.     Surely  the  facts  of  the  case 


i86  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

could  be  brought  sufficiently  home  to  the  minds  of  the  electors 
from  either  point  of  view  by  means  of  public  meetings  and  posted 
literature.  But  this  is  a  counsel  of  perfection  which  I  suppose 
nobody  now  breathing  will  live  to  see  put  into  practice,  for  the 
same  reason  that  he  is  not  likely  to  see  an  effort  made  to  reduce 
election  expenses,  so  that  it  will  be  possible  for  poor  men  of  ability 
to  stand  for  Parliament.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  leaders 
of  either  of  the  great  parties  in  the  House  wish  to  welcome  *  poor 
men  of  ability '  within  its  doors,  for  such  people  are  too  apt  to 
think  for  themselves  and  develop  individual  opinions.  Probably 
they  prefer  rich  men  who  will  follow  the  flag  wherever  it  may  lead, 
and  ask  no  questions. 

I  began  my  efforts  with  Rough  Jimmy,  employing  the  usual 
*  Norfolk  man  for  Norfolk  '  argument,  &c.  He  listened  in  silence, 
which  was  disconcerting,  then  said,  with  an  innocent  air,  and 
turning  on  me  his  one  questioning  eye,  in  which  I  thought  that  I 
could  catch  a  twinkle  : 

'  Well,  squire,  for  well-nigh  sixty  year  I've  been  trying  to  make 
up  my  mind  which  is  the  best  party,  and  I'm  danged  if  I  can  do  it 
yet.     But  do  yow  kepp  on  a  talking  and  p'raps  I  shall  find  out.' 

I  have  a  shrewd  suspicion  as  to  which  way  Rough  Jimmy  will 
vote.  I  am  convinced  that  his  principles  are  what  might  be 
called  progressive.  If  a  voter's  views  are  very  pronounced  one 
way  or  another,  generally  it  is  best  for  the  party  which  would  like 
to  mark  him  as  its  own  to  leave  him  undisturbed,  for  then  there 
is  always  a  good  chance  that  he  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  vote, 
whereas  once  he  is  brought  to  the  poll  the  result  is  sure.  One  of 
the  best  and  most  trusted  men  in  my  employ  is  a  stout  Radical, 
and  I  have  adopted  these  tactics  with  him.  It  is  curious  to  any- 
one who  mixes  with  the  labouring  classes,  and  perhaps,  to  some 
extent,  enjoys  their  sympathy  and  confidence,  to  notice — if  the 
crust  of  timidity  and  suspicion  can  be  pierced  and  their  real  views 
ascertained — how  marked  is  the  dividing  line  of  opinion  among 
them.  Some  are  by  nature  Conservative,  and  others  by  nature 
Radical,  and  in  those  cases  where  political  conviction  really  exists 


MAY  187 

I  do  not  think  that  the  arguments  of  an  angel  from  heaven  would 
suffice  to  change  them.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  that  throughout 
every  class  of  English  society,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  the 
cleavage  of  political  opinion  is  vertical,  not  lateral,  and  that  in  this 
happy  state  of  affairs,  so  different  from  that  which  prevails  in  some 
other  lands,  lies  our  great  guarantee  of  safety  against  violent 
changes  and  revolution. 

A  neighbour  of  mine  tells  me  to-day  that  an  entire  field  full  of 
his  beans  have  failed  to  appear  above  the  ground.  Those  respon- 
sible for  the  sowing  of  the  beans  allege  that  his  pheasants  (he 
preserves)  have  scratched  them  up  and  eaten  them.  He,  on  the 
contrary,  is  of  opinion  that  the  beans  were  allowed' to  heat  upon 
the  stack  and  that  their  germinating  power  was  thus  destroyed.  I 
know  not  who  is  right,  but  incline  to  the  latter  view,  as  pheasants, 
however  mischievous — and  they  are  very  mischievous — would 
scarcely  have  removed  every  bean  with  such  singular  regularity. 

Afay  7. — Spring  is  slow  in  coming  this  year.  To-day  is  again 
sunless  with  a  cold  north-east  wind.  The  young  mangolds  are 
beginning  to  look  very  yellow  from  lack  of  warmth,  and  so  are 
the  little  grass-seedlings  sown  down  for  permanent  pasture. 
Warm  nights  are  needed  now,  and  we  get  none.  On  the  farm  we 
are  going  on  with  our  routine :  timber-gilling,  swede-baulking, 
and  manure-carting. 

By  hiding  behind  a  bush  this  morning — for  they  seem  to  have 
a  great  dislike  of  being  watched — I  saw  a  most  curious  form  of 
courtship  in  progress  between  a  cock  and  a  hen  turkey.  They 
stood  back  to  back  at  a  little  distance  from  each  other,  and  then, 
after  various  deliberate  preparations,  began  waltzing  round  in  a 
circle,  keeping  their  outspread  tails  pointing  to  each  other.  It 
reminded  me  of  a  figure  in  one  of  the  square  dances  where  the 
lady  and  gentleman  walk  round  one  another  back  to  back. 

All  the  bullocks  at  Baker's  have  now  been  sold  to  the  butcher 
by  weight  at  a  price  of  7^.  a  stone.  Let  us  say  that  works  out  at 
160/.  for  the  eight  of  them,  plus  14/.  los.  for  the  two  which  went 


1 88 


A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


wrong,  or  in  all  at  174/.  loi".  On  this  estimate  they  will,  I  fear, 
still  show  a  loss.  Speaking  roughly,  they  have  eaten  about  30/. 
worth  of  corn  and  cake,  in  addition  to  great  quantities  of  root,  hay 
and  straw. 

Writing  on  a  later  date  I  turn  back  to  this  page  of  my  diary 
dealing  with  the  subject  of  these  bullocks,  since  it  seems  the  best 
place  in  which  to  interpolate  the  final  accounts  now  available  after 
the  decease  of  the  last  of  them. 


Here  they  are : 

Credit 

Debit 

Sold 

£,     s. 

d. 

£      s. 

d. 

I  Bullock  (sick)       . 

2  10 

0 

10  Irish  bullocks  bought 

130  10 

0 

I         ,,        „ 

.     12    0 

0 

Hay  and  root  by  valua- 

4 Bullocks  by  weight 

.     76    8 

0 

tion 

65     0 

0 

4 

.     79    9 

6 

Corn  bought 

22  10 

0 

Grinding  corn 

I   15 

0 

I  ton  of  cake 

5  10 

0 

2  coombs  linseed  . 

2    2 

0 

170    7    6 


227     7 


From  this  interesting  account  it  would  appear  that  in  return 
for  the  pleasure  of  housing,  feeding,  and  caring  for  that  choice  lot 
of  imported  cattle  I  am  out  of  pocket  to  the  tune  of  56/.  19^-.  6d., 
plus  whatever  bill  the  veterinary  may  think  it  just  and  right  to 
present  for  his  attendance  upon  them.  They  were  the  most  vora- 
cious animals  that  ever  I  had  to  do  with,  and  I  beHeve  the  esti- 
mate for  root,  &c.,  which  they  ate  to  be  absolutely  correct ;  further, 
it  will  be  observed  that  nothing  has  been  set  down  for  labour, 
because  we  reckon  that  the  manure  they  leave  in  the  yard  pays 
for  the  labour.  Also  they  were  the  most  unhealthy,  for,  not- 
withstanding every  care,  one  or  other  of  them  was  continually 
aiHng,  and  I  hear  that  the  last  which  has  been  killed,  although  he 
weighed  fairly  well,  was  discovered  to  be  suffering  from  long- 
standing disease  of  the  liver. 

It  may  be  urged  that  I  was  very  unlucky  with  two  of  these 
animals,  but  even  on  the  supposition  that  they  had  fetched  40/. 
instead  of  14/.  10^.,  which  would  have  brought  up  the  total  pro- 


MA  Y  189 

ceeds  of  the  ten  to  195/.  17^.  6d.,  I  should  still  have  lost  about 
33/.  net  on  the  transaction.  It  is  obvious  that  at  this  rate  store- 
cattle  cannot  be  made  to  pay.  Of  course  there  is  an  explanation — 
that  if  there  chances  to  be  a  plentiful  root-crop,  as  was  the  case  last 
year,  such  animals  rise  in  price.  But  the  value  of  meat  does  not 
rise,  for  whenever  it  reaches  a  certain  figure,  unremunerative  for 
the  most  part  to  the  British  grazier,  dead  meat  pours  in  by  the 
thousand  tons  from  abroad  and  swamps  the  market ;  or,  which  is 
worse,  foreign  cattle  are  imported  by  the  drove,  slaughtered  at  the 
port  of  debarkation,  and  sold  to  the  consumer  as  best  British  beef. 

The  moral  is  that  it  does  not  pay  to  buy  these  lean  and  full- 
grown  seaborne  cattle  for  winter  fatting.  I  have  never  done  so  be- 
fore, and  should  not  have  committed  the  mistake  last  autumn  had 
it  not  been  for  the  accident  of  my  finding  myself  unexpectedly 
with  fifty  acres  more  land  and  a  large  quantity  of  roots  upon  my 
hands.  Far  wiser  is  it  to  rear  every  calf  that  the  cows  drop,  or,  if 
more  stock  is  necessary,  to  buy  young  home-bred  things  in  the 
local  market,  and  in  our  expressive  Norfolk  language  to  '  wriggle ' 
them  along  till  they  grow  into  saleable  beef.  The  food  that  such 
young  creatures  eat,  most  of  it  even  in  winter  being  picked  up  on 
the  pastures,  makes  by  comparison  a  small  show  in  the  farm  bill, 
and  yet  by  degrees  they  grow  into  value.  The  market  cattle,  on 
the  contrary,  have  to  be  fed  off  the  best,  and  plenty  of  it,  if  m^at 
is  to  be  put  upon  their  great  slab  sides  in  sufficient  quantity  to 
render  them  acceptable  to  the  butcher.  And  here,  a  sadder  and 
a  wiser  man,  I  bid  farewell  to  those  ten  unprofitable  Irish  bullocks. 

Butter  is  dreadfully  low  in  price  just  now,  eightpence  or  nine- 
pence  in  Bungay  market.  My  arrangement  with  my  customers 
is  that  I  receive  a  penny  a  pound  more  than  the  local  market 
price.  It  will,  I  think,  be  admitted  that  this  is  not  too  much 
when  it  is  remembered  that  my  butter  is  made  from  the  cream  of 
pedigree  cattle  with  the  help  of  a  separator,  is  never  touched  by 
the  hand,  and  in  summer  is  stored  in  a  refrigerator  with  ice. 
Without  disparagement  to  the  produce  of  the  district  I  may  explain 
that  it  does  not  receive  these  advantages.     But  at  eightpence  per 


iQO  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

pound,  plus  one  penny,  I  cannot  make  butter  pay — indeed  it  costs 
more  than  this  to  manufacture. 

If,  instead  of  producing  an  average  of  about  sixty  pounds  a 
week,  I  could  turn  out,  let  us  say,  two  hundred,  things  would  be 
better,  for  then  I  might  enter  into  a  contract  at  a  more  remunera- 
tive figure  in  London  or  some  other  large  market.  But  with  the 
amount  of  land  that  I  farm  this  is  just  what  I  cannot  do,  since  to 
undertake  to  deliver  a  certain  quantity  weekly,  and  then,  owing  to 
an  unexpected  failure  with  the  cows  or  the  prevalence  of  drought, 
to  be  unable  to  supply  it,  would  prove  embarrassing.  Therefore 
I  have  to  be  content  with  local  custom.  Of  this  I  have  plenty  ; 
indeed,  could  I  supply  twice  th'e  weight,  I  believe  that  I  should 
have  no  difficulty  in  disposing  of  my  stuff.  Only  if  the  market  falls 
in  the  neighbourhood,  buyers  not  unnaturally  expect  to  get  the 
benefit  of  the  drop,  and  so  it  comes  about  that  the  producers  must 
at  certain  seasons  of  the  year  deliver  at  a  loss.  The  explanation 
of  this,  as  of  all  our  other  troubles,  is  to  be  found  in  the  vast 
importations  of  Danish  and  other  inferior  butters  made  up  in  co- 
operative creameries  from  cows  fed  on  practically  unlimited  pastures. 
These  butters  can  be  retailed  at  a  price  with  which  we  English 
farmers  are  unable  to  compete.  What  processes  they  go  through 
before  they  appear  upon  the  British  breakfast  table  I  know  not, 
but  if  all  accounts  are  true,  and  we  have  seen  plenty  of  them  lately 
in  the  newspapers,  especially  with  reference  to  Scandinavian 
products,  they  seem  to  be  sufficiently  disagreeable. 

A  few  years  ago  I  travelled  in  Brittany,  and  observed  the 
peasant  farms  there,  whence,  as  I  understand,  much  butter  is 
collected,  to  be  sorted  into  grades  and  worked  up  by  dealers  for  the 
British  market.  The  result  of  my  studies  was  that  for  my  own  part 
I  should  prefer  not  to  eat  the  butter  gathered  from  those  farms. 
But  provided  that  the  article  is  pleasant  to  the  eye,  agreeable  to 
the  taste,  and  cheap,  our  public  cares  nothing  for  the  cleanliness 
or  otherwise  of  its  place  of  origin.  Cheapness,  and  nothing  but 
cheapness,  is  what  they  consider.  Were  it  rank  poison — which  I 
believe  it  sometimes  is — they  would  still  eat  it,  provided  it  was 


MAY  191 

cheap.  What  matters  it  to  them  that  an  ancient  and  festering  mid- 
den heap  stands  before  the  door  of  the  dairy,  or  that  the  water  with 
which  the  vessels  are  washed  is  practically  a  concentrated  sewage 
fluid,  or  that  the  butter  itself  is  treated  with  boracic  acid,  fusel 
oil,  and  any  other  half-poisonous  chemical  that,  forbidden  upon 
the  Continent,  may  be  freely  used  to  '  bring  up '  foodstuffs  for 
the  benefit  of  the  British  customer  ? 

Nor  is  it  only  with  the  foreign  butter  that  we  have  to  compete ; 
there  remains  the  margarine  which,  as  the  deputation  reminded 
Mr.  Chaplin,  is  coloured  to  imitate  it,  and,  thanks  to  such  colour- 
ing, very  frequently  sold  as  butter  by  the  ingenious  British  trader. 

A  few  years  ago  I  had  the  advantage  of  going  over  a  large 
margarine  factory  on  the  Continent.  In  the  course  of  con- 
versation with  the  proprietors,  I  mentioned  that  I  had  been 
mformed  that  persons  in  Great  Britain  who  purported  to  supply 
the  public  with  the  best  of  butter  were  among  their  largest 
customers,  and  asked  them  if  they  felt  at  liberty  to  tell  me 
whether  or  no  this  were  the  truth.  After  a  little  hesitation  they 
replied  that  it  was  quite  true,  and  changed  the  subject. 

This  margarine  factory  was  a  fearful  and  wonderful  place. 
There  were  the  barrels  of  fat  extracted  from  American  cattle  or 
other  animals— a  great  deal  of  the  success  in  the  manufacture 
depends  upon  a  fine  taste  in  fat;  indeed,  I  gathered  that  the 
buyer  will  never  do  well  unless  he  is  gifted  with  the  true  ^air  in 
this  important  matter.  Then  there  were  the  steam  churns,  for  the 
best  qualities  of  margarine  are  mixed  with  a  proportion  of  genuine 
butter ;  and  with  these  other  machines  innumerable.  What  chiefly 
remains  upon  my  mind,  however,  is  a  vision  of  the  subject-matter 
of  the  stuff,  great  lumps  of  oily  nastiness  large  as  men's  heads, 
that  bobbed  up  and  down  in  cauldrons  of  seething  yellow  grease. 
If  their  ultimate  consumers  could  have  seen  them  at  this  stage  I 
think  they  would  have  given  up  'butter'  for  a  week  or  two. 
Yet  after  those  lumps  had  gone  through  all  the  necessary  processes 
and  refinements,  the  results  were  quite  pleasing  to  behold — there 
lay  the  '  butter '  in  shining  heaps,  some  of  it  yellow,  some  white. 


192  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

with  every  variety  of  intermediate  shade,  for  different  countries 
consume  different  colours  ;  indeed,  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find 
that  one  town  in  England  will  not  look  at  the  brand  which  pleases 
another  town.  Moreover,  it  has  to  be  packed  in  accordance  with 
its  place  of  destination,  in  oak  tubs  for  one  country,  in  baskets  for 
another,  and  so  forth. 

Much  edified,  my  friend,  with  whom  I  had  inspected  the 
factory,  and  I  took  our  departure.  After  we  had  walked  for  a 
while  through  the  streets  of  the  city,  I  was  obliged  to  call  his 
attention  to  the  fact  that  his  boots  appeared  to  smell  exceedingly 
disagreeable.  He  retaliated  with  the  remark  that  he  had  noticed 
the  same  phenomenon  about  my  own,  but  had  been  prevented  by 
politeness  from  mentioning  the  fact.  This  led  to  investigation,  and 
the  discovery  that  the  evil  odour  arose  from  the  essence  of  mar- 
garine in  which  we  had  been  walking.  Many  days  went  by  before 
those  boots  were  again  fit  to  wear,  which  shows  the  vitality  and 
nourishing  nature  of  the  substances  wherewith  they  had  been 
impregnated.  By  the  way,  I  am  able  to  reassure  consumers  of 
this  article  of  commerce,  who,  I  suppose,  must  include  the  majority 
of  the  inhabitants  of  these  islands,  that  in  one  respect  it  has  been 
libelled.  Shortly  before  my  visit  statements  were  extensively 
published  in  the  Press  to  the  effect  that  margarine  is  largely 
composed  of  oils  and  greases  evaporated  from  the  mud  of  the 
Thames  below  London,  and  other  rivers  that  run  through  great 
cities.  I  asked  the  proprietors  of  the  factory  if  there  was  any 
truth  in  this  allegation,  and  they  replied  that  it  was  quite  untrue. 
Margarine,  it  would  seem,  is  practically  the  fat  of  animals  flavoured 
to  taste,  and  coloured  in  such  a  manner  as  to  deceive  an 
imaginative  public  into  the  belief  that  it  is  eating  butter.  Also  it 
is  very  remunerative  to  manufacture.  I  have  a  friend  who,  having 
lost  money  in  farming,  invested  in  a  margarine  factory.  It  has 
paid  him  twenty  per  cent,  ever  since  ! 

But  it  is  not  only  in  the  matter  of  butter  that  the  public  is 
deceived.  A  while  ago,  to  my  astonishment,  I  saw  in  the  papers 
that  a  trading  corporation  in  which  I  chance  to  hold  one  or  two 


Ma  y  193 

shares,  or  their  employes,  had  been  prosecuted  and  fined  for 
selling  foreign  hams  as  home-grown.  Accordingly  I  addressed  the 
following  letter  to  the  secretary : 

'Sir, — I  beg  to  enclose  a  cutting  from  to-day's  Times,  from 

which  it  would  seem  that •  have  been  heavily  fined  in  a  London 

police  court  for  selling  foreign  hams,  &c.,  as  Irish,  Wiltshire, 
and  York. 

'As  (i)  a  shareholder,  (2)  a  customer  of  several  years'  standing, 
(3)  a  British  farmer  and  a  producer  of  hams  and  bacon,  and  (4) 
a  person  who  when  in  London   has,  unfortunately  for   himself, 

purchased  and  consumed  pig-products  at ,  I  wish  to  ask  what 

explanation  your  directors  have  to  give  of  the  circumstances  set 
out  in  the  enclosed  cutting  and  in  reports  in  other  issues  of  the 
Times  ? ' 

To  this  epistle  I  received  an  answer  requesting  me  kindly  to 
suspend  my  judgment  pending  an  inquiry,  which  the  directors 
intended  to  hold  directly  after  the  holidays.  Accordingly  I 
suspended  it,  and  in  due  course  the  directors,  having  held  their 
inquiry,  issued  a  circular  to  the  shareholders  which,  in  my  humble 
opinion,  was  an  unconvincing  document.  After  reading  it,  indeed, 
my  judgment  still  remains  suspended.  There  may  be  a  satisfactory 
explanation  of  the  peculiar  proceedings  detailed  in  the  police 
court,  although  I  have  not  seen  one,  therefore  it  would  be  unfair 
to  take  it  off  its  peg  at  present. 

*  But  leaving  aside  this  particular  case,  it  is,  I  fear,  beyond 

1  Here,  by  way  of  example,  are  a  couple  of  instances  cut  from  the  Times 
and  Globe  respectively  on  consecutive  days  in  April  1899.  I  may  mention  that 
in  past  years  when  in  London  I  have,  I  believe,  myself  purchased  articles  of 
food  from  this  English  Farmers'  Association  under  the  impression  that  I  was 
supporting  British  industries  : 

'  At  West  London  there  was  a  batch  of  summonses,  taken  out  at  the 
instance  of  the  Butter  Association,  against  shopkeepers  for  selling  adulterated 
butter,  and  Mr.  Rose,  the  magistrate,  who  heard  them,  took  the  opportunity 
of  stating  that  the  fines  would  be  gradually  increased  until  the  maximum  pre- 
scribed by  the  Act  of  Parliament  was  reached.  In  nearly  all  the  cases  the 
excuse  was  that  a  mistake  was  made  in  serving  margarine  instead  of  pure  butter. 

O 


194  •      A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

question  that  some  traders  hold  it  to  matter  little  if  the  British 
public  be  deceived,  and  the  British  farmer  defrauded  by  the  sale 
as  his  produce  of  goods  which  he  never  grew,  so  long  as  the  end 
of  all  trade — a  heavy  dividend — is  satisfactorily  achieved. 

I  heard  a  good  story  to-day  about  the  Radical  candidate.  It 
is  said  that  at  one  of  his  meetings  a  farmer  in  the  audience,  pro- 
ducing a  swede  out  of  one  pocket  and  a  mangold  wurzel  from  the 
other,  offered  them  to  the  candidate,  and  asked  him  politely  to 
give  them  a  name,  whereon  he  gave  the  wrong  name.  Although 
it  was  told  circumstantially  enough,  I  do  not  believe  this  story, 
first,  because  it  is  an  old  one,  which,  if  far  more  harmless,  is  used 
against  the  Radical  from  a  distance  in  very  much  the  same  way 
that  the  famous  *  nine  bob  a  week '  fiction  is  used  against  the  local 
Conservative ;  and  secondly,  because  I  doubt  any  farmer  having 
the  courage  to  try  the  experiment,  since,  if  his  would-be  victim  by 
good  luck  or  good  judgment  should  give  the  right  answer,  it 
would  be  long  before  that  practical  joker  heard  the  last  of  his  jest. 
The  tale,  however,  is  interesting,  because  in  a  humorous  form  it 
raises  the  entire  question  as  to  what  sort  of  man  best  represents  a 
county  division.  The  obvious  answer  appears  to  be — one  who 
lives  in  the  country  and  is  acquainted  with  its  pursuits.  But  this 
is  by  no  means  the  view  taken  by  many  constituencies,  who  seem 
to  think  that  the  less  their  member  knows  of  them  and  they  know 
of  him,  the  better. 

In  the  first  case  the  defendant  pleaded  "Guilty,"  and  said  a  mistake  was 
made.  Mr.  Ricketts  said  the  article  contained  84  per  cent,  of  fat  other  than 
butter.  Mr.  Rose  remarked  that  the  small  fines  hitherto  imposed  had  not  had 
the  effect  of  stopping  the  practice,  and  it  was  quite  time  to  increase  them.  He 
fined  the  defendant  8/.  with  255-.  costs.' 

*  ENGLISH  MEATl 

*  At  Guildhall,  yesterday,  the  English  Farmers'  Association  (Limited),  who 
professed  to  supply  the  public  direct  with  English  meat  of  the  finest  quality, 
so  as  "  to  save  the  consumer  the  large  profits  made  by  butchers,"  were  fined, 
including  costs,  44/.  dfS.  on  two  charges  of  selling  New  Zealand  or  Australian 
mutton  as  Welsh.  It  was  stated  that  no  English  farmers  were  connected  with 
the  defendant  association.' 


WHEN     ALL    THE     WORLD     IS     YOUNG. 


MAY  195 

My  own  opinion  is  that  it  does  not  much  matter.  These 
London  candidates  (I  will  not  use  the  term  'carpet-baggers,' 
because  I  consider  it  offensive)  come  down  to  stand  for  a  county 
division,  not  because  they  have  any  particular  interest  in  it,  but 
because  they  desire  to  be  members  of  Parliament ;  and  the  county 
division  returns  them,  not  because  it  has  any  particular  love  for  or 
interest  in  them,  but  because  they  are  pledged  to  vote  in  a  way 
which  is  pleasing  to  the  majority  of  the  electors.  Sometimes  such 
candidates  turn  out  well,  and  make  a  mark  in  the  House  ;  indeed, 
they  have  even  been  known  to  do  good  service  to  their 
constituencies  ;  but  in  eight  cases  out  of  ten,  once  they  are  elected 
no  man  hears  of  them  more  ;  they  vanish  into  the  great  crowd  of 
Parliamentary  nobodies,  and  for  good  or  ill  there  is,  poHtically 
speaking,  an  end  of  them. 

This  evening  I  went  for  a  walk  on  the  Bath  Hills.  The  water 
meadows  beneath  them  are  now  singularly  beautiful,  the  green 
grass  being  tinged  with  the  purple  of  the  cuckoo-flower,  varied  by 
flashes  of  gold  where  the  king-cups  grow,  that  become  brighter 
and  richer  along  the  edges  of  the  dykes.  Also  I  found  a  patch  of 
the  wild  purple  orchis  flourishing  quite  under  the  shadow  of  the 
trees,  in  the  fell  indeed.  As  might  be  expected  in  that  situation, 
they  were  very  pale  in  colour,  but  being  exceedingly  conspicuous, 
as  are  most  of  the  orchid  tribe,  tropical  or  European,  they  caught 
my  eye  at  once.  This  orchid,  like  all  its  relations,  is  very  fasti- 
dious as  to  its  habitat.  My  observation  of  it  goes  to  show  that 
although  it  flourishes  in  certain  old  meadows,  generally  with  a 
very  heavy  soil,  it  does  best  where  it  is  partially,  but  not  alto- 
gether, overshadowed  by  trees,  and  on  a  stiff  clay.  Some  years 
ago  I  dug  up  several  clumps  of  these  plants,  and  set  them  out 
again  in  this  garden,  imitating  the  conditions  in  which  I  found 
them  as  regards  soil  and  situation  as  nearly  as  was  possible.  They 
have  come  up  every  spring  and  bloomed  after  a  fashion,  but  I 
cannot  say  that  the  experiment  was  successful.  I  have  also  tried 
transplanting  the  bee-orchid,  of  which,  although  it  is  very  rare  in 
these  parts,  a  few  roots  grow,  or  used  to  grow,  in  a  certain  marshy 

o  2 


196  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

spot  at  the  foot  of  the  Vineyard  Hills.  Now  I  wish  that  I  had  left 
them  alone,  for  although  I  took  every  care,  even  to  removing  a 
large  sod  of  their  native  soil  and  wiring  them  round,  from  that 
day  to  this  they  have  never  shown  a  single  leaf. 

By  the  way,  the  finest  specimens  of  purple  orchis  that  I  have 
ever  seen  grow  in  Websdill  Wood,  on  my  farm  at  Bedingham. 

May  8. — To-day,  Sunday,  is  dull  and  rather  cold,  with  occa 
sional  showers  of  light  rain,  and  none  of  the  sunshine  which  is 
now  so  badly  needed.  When  I  was  writing  of  snakes  a  few  days 
back  I  did  not  guess  that  I  should  so  soon  be  a  witness  of  their 
dangerous  properties  even  in  this  country.  To-day  I  heard, 
however,  that  a  son  of  a  neighbour  of  mine,  aged  twelve,  had 
actually  been  bitten  by  a  viper,  and  went  to  the  village  where 
he  lives  to  inquire  after  him,  and  to  find  out  the  facts  of  the  case. 
This  was  what  happened,  as  I  had  it  from  the  Hps  of  his 
mother. 

On  the  previous  day  she  and  two  of  her  sons  were  bird- 
nesting  in  a  neighbouring  wood,  when  the  boy  Dick,  who  it 
appears  has  a  most  unwholesome  admiration  for  reptiles,  suddenly 
called  out,  '  Here's  a  beauty  !  Look,  mother,  he  has  bitten  me  ; 
let's  take  him  home.' 

Accordingly  she  looked,  to  see  Dick  holding  a  wriggling  viper 
in  his  hand,  although  at  the  time  she  did  not  know  that  it  was  a 
viper.  As  she  had  lived  in  India,  however,  she  called  to  him  to 
throw  it  down,  and  then,  very  pluckily,  trod  on  it  until  she  killed 
it,  the  reptile  striking  savagely  at  her  boot  the  while,  although, 
fortunately  for  her,  it  was  unable  to  pierce  the  leather. 

Then,  carrying  the  dead  snake  with  them,  the  three  of  them 
started  homeward  till,  a  few  minutes  afterwards,  the  other  boy 
said,  '  Look,  Dick  is  turning  white,'  immediately  after  which  he 
fell  to  the  ground  almost  insensible. 

At  this  moment  it  chanced  that  a  keeper  arrived,  for  the  party 
had  been  inadvertently  trespassing  in  a  preserve  from  which  he 
had  come  to  warn  them,  and  by  his  help  the  swooning  lad  was 


MA  Y  197 

carried  to  his  home  nearly  a  mile  away,  his  mother  running  on  to 
get  brandy  and  telegraph  for  the  doctor. 

As  soon  as  Dick  arrived  he  was  dosed  heavily  with  brandy  and 
ammonia ;  also,  as  I  forgot  to  say,  by  his  mother's  direction,  im- 
mediately after  being  bitten  he  had  sucked  the  wound,  which 
was  between  two  fingers  of  the  left  hand.  Further,  he  was 
walked,  or  rather  dragged  up  and  down,  till  at  length  he  became 
utterly  exhausted,  and,  to  the  terrible  alarm  of  his  parents,  his 
throat  began  to  close  up  so  that  he  could  no  longer  swallow. 

Owing  to  various  mischances  nearly  three  hours  went  by  before 
a  doctor  came.  On  his  arrival  he  at  once  put  the  boy  to  bed,  for 
it  appears  that  a  great  mistake  had  been  made  in  walking  him 
about,  which  only  served  to  consume  his  strength.  By  now  poor 
Dick  was  almost  in  extremis  ;  but  the  doctor,  a  man  of  resource, 
applied  a  succession  of  strong  mustard  plasters  to  the  heart,  and 
thus  kept  it  going  until  the  vital  forces  overcame  the  immediate 
effects  of  the  poison.  Had  it  not  been  for  this  treatment  I  under- 
stand that  he  would  have  died. 

To-day,  when  I  saw  the  patient  in  bed,  his  arm  and  hand  were 
swollen  to  the  size  of  those  of  a  large  man,  and  very  hot  to  the 
touch,  while  the  skin  was  tense,  shining,  and  red  in  colour.  The 
face  also  was  red  and  flushed,  but  I  am  glad  to  say  that  Dick  is 
now  believed  to  be  out  of  any  danger. 

Vipers  are  rare  in  this  county ;  I  never  remember  seeing  but 
one  of  them,  though  they  are  said  to  be  plentiful  in  the  wood 
where  my  little  friend  was  bitten.  It  is  uncommon  for  them  to 
strike  human  beings,  for  they  are  retiring  in  their  habits;  but 
even  the  most  peaceably  minded  adder  resents  being  pounced 
upon  and  picked  up.  It  appears  also  that  at  this  time  of  the  year, 
when  these  reptiles  have  just  emerged  from  their  long  winter 
sleep,  the  poison  in  their  fangs  is  unusually  virulent ;  moreover, 
it  is  their  breeding  season,  during  which  they  are  supposed  to  be 
most  deadly. 

The  last  authenticated  case  of  viper-poisoning  in  this  neigh- 
bourhood occurred  about  forty  years  ago,  when  a  schoolboy,  who 


198  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

was,  I  think,  attended  by  the  father  of  Dr.  Crowfoot,  of  Beccles, 
was  bitten,  but  recovered.  My  friend.  Dr.  Lyne  Stivens,  tells  me 
also  of  a  dreadful  case  which  was  seen  by  his  father,  a  doctor 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Chester.  In  this  instance  a  woman 
went  with  her  eighteen-month-old  baby  into  a  wood  to  gather 
sticks,  and  laid  it  down  asleep  while  she  sought  them.  Her 
movements  disturbed  an  adder  which,  hurrying  away  to  seek 
a  hiding-place,  crawled  down  the  mouth  of  the  child  and  choked  it. 
He  says  that  this  horrible  case  made  a  great  sensation  at  the  time. 

May  10. — Yesterday  the  weather  was  dull  and  raw,  with  a 
sou'-west  wind.  On  the  farm  we  were  doing  odd  jobs  and  split- 
ting the  baulks  for  swedes  upon  the  glebe-land.  Also  the  corn  which 
we  sold  the  other  day  was  carted  from  Bedingham  to  Loddon, 
where  we  contracted  to  deliver  it.  To-day  I  was  walking  round 
Baker's,  and  find  that  the  docks,  which  with  the  other  weeds  will, 
for  this  season  at  any  rate,  as  I  fear,  make  the  farm  a  damnosa 
hei-editas  to  me,  are  simply  countless.  Many  of  them  also  are 
marsh  docks,  a  peculiarly  virulent  variety,  with  fanged  roots,  that 
break  when  one  attempts  to  draw  them,  which  have  been  brought 
up  with  the  lowland  hay  and  carted  on  to  the  land  in  the  manure. 
The  wheat  on  No.  42  is  looking  rather  yellow,  but  I  think  it  is 
because  at  this  season  its  roots  are  beginning  to  pass  down  into 
the  subsoil.  The  roots  of  wheat  penetrate,  I  believe,  many  feet 
through  the  earth,  and  when  they  first  leave  the  cultivated  stratum 
the  top  is  apt  to  show  a  yellow  tinge.  At  Bedingham,  whither  I 
went  this  afternoon,  the  wheat  continues  to  look  magnificent,  but 
the  barley  is  rather  thin  and  yellow,  owing  to  the  prolonged  cold 
and  damp.     Barley  at  Bedingham  only  does  well  in  a  hot,  dry  year. 

The  young  red-poll  steers  and  heifers,  which  are  grazing  in 
Websdill  Wood,  set  to  work  to  hunt  the  two  terrier  dogs  that 
accompanied  me,  chasing  them  round  and  round  the  great  field, 
till  at  length  the  dogs,  growing  tired  and  frightened,  either  hid  in 
a  ditch  or  bolted  straight  away  for  the  open  country.  At  any 
rate  they  vanished,  and  I  was  obliged   to  come   home  without 


A/AY  199 

them.  Spotting  the  grass  in  this  oak-shaded  pasture  I  found 
many  splendid  specimens  of  purple  orchids  {Orchis  latifolia)\ 
indeed,  in  half  an  hour  I  gathered  as  large  a  bunch  as  1  could  bind 
round  with  my  handkerchief. 

Among  them  I  discovered  one  pure  white  bloom,  which  shows 
that  the  tendency  among  orchids  to  produce  an  occasional 
albino  is  not  confined  to  the  tropical  varieties.  These  albino 
sports  in  the  case  of  laelias,  cattleyas,  &c.,  command  great  prices 
among  the  wealthier  members  of  the  orchid-loving  fraternity,  but 
I  fear  that  they  would  not  give  me  much  for  a  pure  white 
latifolia.  Notwithstanding  the  rain,  which  fell  with  unpleasant 
persistence,  I  have  not  spent  an  hour  so  happily  for  many 
weeks  as  that  I  passed  this  afternoon  gathering  those  stately 
purple  blooms  which  stood  up  here  and  there  in  the  green  grass 
under  the  canopy  of  oaks  now  bursting  into  leaf.  Perhaps  this 
was  because  the  scene  and  its  surroundings  afforded  a  pleasing 
contrast  to  the  political  turmoil  which  overshadows  us  to-day. 
Bedingham  and  politics  are  things  incongruous  and  far  apart ; 
indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  connect  this  old-world  place,  on  which 
the  shadow  of  the  past  seems  to  brood  visibly,  with  anything 
violent  and  modern. 

Notwithstanding  the  industrious  cleaning  to  which  the  fields 
here  have  been  subjected  during  the  recent  dry  years,  I  find  that 
there  are  hundreds  of  little  docks  growing  among  the  pease  where 
last  season  not  one  was  to  be  seen.  The  labourer,  Cooke,  who  is 
employed  in  pulling  them  declares  that  seed  which  has  lain 
buried  for  long  periods  of  time  is  brought  to  the  surface  with  each 
ploughing  to  germinate  whenever  the  conditions  are  favourable. 
I  imagine  that  this  theory  is  correct,  as  under  certain  conditions 
the  vitality  of  seed  can  be  prolonged  almost  indefinitely  ;  witness 
the  instances  of  the  appearance  of  charlock  after  deep  ploughings 
upon  heavy  land  and  of  wheat  found  in  mummy  cases,  which 
has,  I  believe,  been  known  to  grow  from  seeds  thousands  of  years 
old.  I  have  myself  seen  grain  in  Egypt  taken  from  the  wrappings  of 
mummies  that  had  every  appearance  of  being  sound  enough  to 


200  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

plant.  Another  proof  of  the  vitality  of  seed  prolonged  over  great 
periods  of  time  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  where  railway 
cuttings  or  other  deep  trenches  are  made,  flowers  and  herbage 
sometimes  appear  upon  the  earth  thrown  out  of  them  different  in 
character  from  those  native  to  the  district.  Also  I  have  heard, 
though  of  this  I  have  no  personal  experience,  that  if  dense  forest 
is  burnt  down  in  Borneo  and  some  other  tropical  countries,  the 
growth  which  comes  up  is  absolutely  distinct  from  that  which  has 
been  destroyed,  which  suggests  that  the  seeds  producing  it  were 
shed  before  the  primseval  forest  came  into  being. 

To  my  mind,  if  no  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  marvel  is 
forthcoming,  this  is  the  strangest  example  of  the  three,  since  it  is 
more  wonderful  that  germs  should  retain  life  in  the  damp  heat 
of  a  tropical  forest  than  in  the  intense  dryness  of  an  Egyptian 
sepulchre,  or  when  sealed  up  beneath  many  feet  of  stiff  clay. 

May  II. — Last  evening  I  took  the  chair  at  a  political  meeting 
in  this  village,  which  was  well  attended  and  went  off  satisfac- 
torily. When  we  were  about  two-thirds  through  it  the  candidate 
arrived  from  some  distant  place,  looking  very  tired.  Remember- 
ing my  own  sensations  when  it  came  to  the  point  of  addressing  a 
third  or  fourth  meeting  in  the  course  of  a  single  day,  my  heart 
went  out  to  him  in  sympathy.  The  man  who  in  middle  life 
abandons  the  quiet  of  his  home  to  tear  round  and  round  a  large 
extent  of  country  at  considerable  expense  in  the  hope  of  winning 
the  privilege  of  paying  a  great  many  subscriptions  and  sitting  up 
very  late  at  night  for  more  than  half  the  year  does,  indeed, 
deserve  the  gratitude  of  those  whom  he  represents,  or  tries  to 
represent.  It  is  little  to  be  wondered  at  that,  in  our  part  of 
England  at  any  rate,  local  gentlemen  suited  to  the  task  and 
willing  to  undertake  it  are  growing  rarer  every  day,  the  distinction 
of  seeking  parliamentary  honours  being  left  more  and  more  to 
pushing  barristers,  who  look  upon  them  as  part  of  the  routine  of 
their  profession,  or  to  strangers  with  axes  of  their  own  to  grind. 

Our   meeting   was   very   orderly ;  there   was   not    even    any 


MA  Y  20I 

'boo-ing,'  though  I  heard  a  little  of  this  the  other  night  at 
Broome.  Mr.  Holmes  tells  me,  indeed,  that  there  has  been  no 
violence  and  very  little  interruption  at  any  of  his  meetings,  so  it 
seems  that  our  division  is  more  civilised  than  are  some  places  in 
East  Norfolk.  But  although  it  is  interesting  enough  in  its  own 
melancholy  and  discreditable  fashion,  and  indeed  instructive,  that  is 
a  subject  upon  which  I  do  not  wish  to  enter  in  these  peaceful  pages. 

May  12. — Yesterday  we  had  another  strong  sou'- west  gale, 
varied  with  storms  of  hail  and  rain,  which  were  not,  however, 
violent  enough  to  interfere  with  the  baulk-splitting  and  timber- 
gilling.  Last  night,  in  obedience  to  urgent  telegrams,  I  had  to 
drive  six  miles  to  another  meeting.  To  my  mind,  looked  at  from 
the  point  of  view  of  any  political  advantage,  it  was  the  very  worst 
sort  of  meeting,  for  the  room  was  not  much  more  than  half  filled 
with  steady-going  supporters  of  the  Unionist  cause,  who  have 
probably  voted  the  same  way  ever  since  they  had  a  vote,  and 
will  continue  to  do  so  until  voting  ceases  to  interest  them.  Speak- 
ing to  such  an  audience  in  a  great  half-empty  hall  is,  moreover, 
about  as  depressing  a  performance  as  would  be  the  making  of 
harangues  to  rows  of  high-class  mummies  in  a  Theban  tomb.  Not 
that  I  wish  to  disparage  the  audience,  which  was  of  a  most  intelligent 
character,  but  it  was  impossible  for  the  would-be-orator  not  to  feel 
that  there  sat  among  them  no  man  whom  he  could  hope  to  convert, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  their  minds  were  already  made  up,  and 
that  they  were  brought  there  by  a  sense  of  duty  only.  From  without 
came  very  different  sounds,  for  the  other  side  were  holding  an 
open-air  gathering,  and  with  shouts  of  enthusiasm  chairing  their 
candidate  about  the  green.  The  difference  was  the  old  difference 
between  the  party  of  defence  and  the  party  of  attack,  but  to  me 
those  shouts  were  ominous  of  the  result  of  the  poll  to-day, 
especially  as  I  hear  that  the  publicans  have  in  many  instances 
turned  against  Mr.  Holmes,  partly  because  at  one  time  or  other 
he  advocated  temperance  principles,  and  partly  on  account  of 
some  question  which  has  to  do  with  rates. 


202  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

This  morning  I  went  to  record  my  vote  at  the  polling-station 
at  Broome,  where  everything  seemed  very  quiet,  and  then  on  to 
the  bench.  Here  the  greater  part  of  our  business  consisted  of 
School  Board  prosecutions,  to  my  mind  the  most  troublesome  and 
perplexing  form  of  case  with  which  a  magistrate  is  called  upon 
to  deal.  Of  course,  as  I  have  had  to  explain  many  and  many  a 
time  during  recent  years,  the  law  is  perfectly  clear.  If  a  child 
under  a  certain  age  is  irregular  in  its  attendance  at  school,  except 
for  some  very  good  reason,  such  as  sickness,  of  which  a  doctor's 
certificate  must  be  produced,  its  parents  are  liable  to  be  fined  five 
shillings,  which  fine  can  be  recovered  by  distress. 

Such  is  the  plain  law,  but  the  enforcing  of  it  is  by  no  means 
as  plain.  Magistrates  are  frequently  blamed — for  the  most  part 
by  doctrinaire  enthusiasts  or  persons  who  have  little  practical 
acquaintance  with  the  conditions  under  which  the  poor  live — 
because  they  are  not  more  severe  upon  this  class  of  offence.  Yet 
in  many  instances  the  circumstances  brought  before  them  are  so 
piteous  that  they  feel  it  would  be  nothing  short  of  wicked  to  add 
to  the  misery  of  the  persons  concerned  by  a  fine  to  be  levied  on 
such  belongings  as  they  still  possess.  Sometimes  the  husband  is 
a  drunkard,  and  the  mother  keeps  the  child  at  home  to  mind  the 
little  ones  while  she  goes  out  to  work  in  the  fields  to  find  bread 
to  put  into  the  mouths  of  all  of  them.  Sometimes  she  is  sick — 
very  likely  being  confined  of  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth  baby— and 
an  elder  girl  who  has  not  yet  passed  her  appointed  standards  is 
forced  to  take  her  place  for  the  time  being ;  and  so  on,  with 
variations. 

For  instance,  to-day  one  woman,  a  widow  with  a  large  family, 
who  burst  out  weeping  in  the  box,  told  us  a  tale  of  her  utter 
penury,  and  of  how  she  was  sometimes  obliged  to  detain  the  child 
on  whose  account  she  had  been  summoned  at  home  to  look  after 
her  small  brothers  and  sisters  while  she  went  out  to  work.  Another 
woman  drew  from  under  her  apron  a  pair  of  boots,  or  rather  the 
remains  of  what  was  once  a  pair  of  boots,  for  they  were  all  holes, 
and  asked  the  bench  how  in   this  cold,  wet  weather  she  could 


MA  Y  203 

be  expected  to  send  a  delicate  girl  to  walk  a  mile  through  the  mud 
in  such  foot-gear,  which  was  all  she  had. 

There  are  many  cases  of  this  nature,  but  of  course  there  are 
still  more  of  utterly  shiftless  parents  who  will  submit  to  be  sum- 
moned and  fined  again  and  again  rather  than  take  the  trouble  to 
get  their  children  to  school.  Also  there  exists  an  aggravating 
class  who,  when  any  of  their  family  fall  sick,  wait  till  a  summons 
is  taken  out  against  them  to  appear  in  court  and  explain  the  cause 
of  absence,  of  course  without  corroboration  in  the  shape  of  a 
doctor's  certificate.  These  people  are  so  numerous  that  on  this 
bench  we  have  found  it  necessary  to  make  a  rule  that  they  shall 
1)0  fined,  however  ill  the  child  may  have  been,  unless  they  can 
bring  medical  evidence  (which  costs  them  nothing)  to  that 
effect. 

Since  writing  the  above,  a  month  or  more  ago,  I  have  read 
the  remarks  of  Sir  J.  Gorst,  the  Vice-President  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Council  on  Education,  made  on  the  occasion  of  the 
discussion  of  the  Education  Vote  in  Committee. 

I  see  that  he  quotes,  apparently  with  approval,  the  report  of 
Mr.  Currie,  in  which  Mr.  Currie  states  *that  the  farmer  and  the 
squire  are  no  friends  of  elementary  education,'  &c.  Here  I  take 
the  liberty  to  join  issue  with  Sir  John  Gorst  and  Mr.  Currie.  The 
farmer  and  the  squire,  at  any  rate  in  this  part  of  the  world,  desire 
to  see  the  children  educated,  but  it  is  true  that  occasionally  they 
find  a  difficulty  in  the  enforcing  of  the  draconian  regulations 
enacted  to  that  end.  It  is  also  true  that  certain  of  the  more  old- 
fashioned  and  conservative  among  them,  while  acknowledging  the 
necessity  and  advantages  of  education  in  these  days  of  hurry  and 
progress,  sometimes  wonder  whether  the  increased  bitterness  of 
competition  that  learning  naturally  brings  about,  and  the  inducing 
of  so  many  thousands  of  young  men  to  forsake  the  rural  occupa- 
tions which  contented  their  forefathers,  in  order  to  put  on  a  black 
coat  and  to  struggle  to  obtain  a  place,  however  ill-paid,  in  a  city 
office,  do  in  fact  conduce  to  the  happiness  in  life  of  those  immedi- 
ately concerned 


204  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Moreover,  in  the  opinion  of  many  of  us  benighted  farmers  and 
squires,  the  plan  under  which  the  young  are  taught  in  rural  dis- 
tricts is  wrong  fundamentally,  being  indeed  a  plan  devised  by 
dwellers  in  cities  for  the  advantage  and  use  of  cities.  What  we 
seek  is  a  system  whereby  boys  and  girls  will  be  instructed  in  those 
arts  and  things  which  are  likely  to  be  serviceable  to  tillers  of  the 
soil  and  their  helpmeets.  We  desire  and  ask  for  a  course  of  edu- 
cation intended  to  make  the  pursuit  of  agriculture  payable  and 
attractive  to  those  who  are  born  to  follow  it,  in  the  place  of  teach- 
ing which,  either  with  or  without  design,  does,  in  effect,  turn  their 
thoughts  and  feet  from  the  country  to  the  town. 

Sir  J.  Gorst  tells  us  that  in  that  educational  Utopia,  the  Upper 
Engadine,  where  the  distances  are  great,  the  climate  is  inclement, 
and  the  difficulties  of  getting  to  school  are  enormous,  such  a 
thing  as  the  unnecessary  absence  of  a  child  is  almost  unknown, 
because  of  the  very  heavy  and  progressive  fines  which  in  that 
event  are  inflicted  upon  its  parents.  If  I  follow  his  meaning 
rightly,  he  seems  to  suggest  that  the  regulations  of  the  Upper 
Engadine  might  with  advantage  be  introduced  into  England, 
together  with  the  progressive  fines,  which  apparently,  after  three 
days'  absence,  would  amount  to  about  ten  shillings,  and  after  a 
week  to  I  know  not  how  much. 

Well,  they  may  be  a  patient  folk  in  the  Upper  Engadine,  but 
the  public  would  never  stand  it  here.  Indeed,  many  will  think 
that  such  fines  would  be  monstrous  in  this  country,  where  the 
goods  of  numbers  of  the  people  prosecuted  do  not  amount  to  a 
total  value  of  five  pounds. 

May  13. — To-day  the  wages  of  all  labourers  on  the  farm  were 
raised  is.  a  week — 'heigh'ned'  is  the  local  term.  This  improve- 
ment in  the  value  of  labour  is  consequent  on  the  rise  in  the  price 
of  corn.  Probably  corn  will  be  down  again  after  harvest,  and 
wages  with  it. 


May  31.    -After  polling  on  the  12th  I  came  here  to  Kessin 


MAY  205 

land,  where  I  have  a  house  upon  the  edge  of  the  cliff  which  was 
once  a  Coastguard  station,  and  before  that,  as  I  understand,  a 
famous  resort  of  smugglers,  who  used  to  hide  their  unlawful 
treasures  in  the  neighbouring  wells. 

As  with  the  best  will  in  the  world  I  cannot  follow  the  details  of  a 
farm  fifteen  miles  away,  my  journal  for  the  next  fortnight  or  so  must 
be  somewhat  scant.  Here  my  farming  is  confined  to  trying  to  make 
the  grass  grow  upon  an  acre  and  a  half  of  land  alongside  of  the 
house,  which  I  wish  to  turn  into  a  'pightle'  or  paddock.  Having 
cleaned  this  soil,  I  sent  a  man  and  horses  over  from  Ditch- 
ingham  on  March  23,  to  sow  it  with  oats  and  small  seed  and 
to  dress  it  with  artificial  manure.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  find 
that  I  should  not  have  attempted  these  operations  for  another 
month,  as  in  this  exposed  situation  the  bitter  winds  of  spring, 
rushing  across  the  ocean,  cut  and  perish  the  young  grasses  if  they 
appear  too  soon.  The  result  is  that  the  expense  of  the  permanent 
grass  seed  is,  I  fear,  for  the  most  part  wasted.  On  that  side  of  the 
pightle  which  is  more  or  less  protected  by  the  house  both 
grass  and  oats  have  come  up  well,  helped,  no  doubt,  by  the  fact 
that  this  was  garden  ground ;  but  further  away  they  are  scanty, 
and  will,  I  think,  have  to  be  re-sown.  What  are  not  scanty, 
although  every  bit  of  the  land  has  been  forked  over,  are  thistles 
and  young  poppies. 

On  the  day  after  we  came  here  I  heard  the  result  of  our  election. 
My  fears  were  more  than  justified,  for  Mr.  Holmes,  whose  pre- 
decessor had  a  majority  of  800,  was  defeated  by  a  majority  of  over 
1,300,  and  this  by  a  gentleman  quite  strange  to  the  county.  Under 
all  the  circumstances,  if  an  angel  had  appeared  as  the  Unionist 
candidate  for  South  Norfolk,  I  do  not  think  that  he  would  have 
been  returned,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  amount  of  the 
adverse  vote  is  absolutely  overwhelming.  I  understand  that  this 
vast  total  is  attributed  to  no  small  extent  to  the  action  of  the 
publicans,  who  consider  that  they  have  some  grievance  about  their 
assessments,  and  therefore  wreaked  it  on  Mr.  Holmes,  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Assessment  Committee.     Of  course,  if  there  is  anything 


2o6  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

in  the  complaint,  which  I  do  not  believe,  the  whole  committee  is 
responsible,  and  not  Mr.  Holmes  alone. 

On  turning  back  to  that  page  of  my  diary  which  deals  with 
the  beginning  of  this  contest,  I  see  I  expressed  an  opinion  that 
a  local  man  is  at  a  great  disadvantage  when  standing  as  a 
candidate,  and  the  result  of  this  fight  certainly  confirms  me  in 
that  view.  Next  time,  if  I  have  anything  to  do  with  the  matter, 
I  shall  certainly  suggest  that  unless  some  gentleman  connected 
with  the  brewing  interest  is  available,  a  rich  man  from  London 
should  be  asked  to  contest  the  constituency,  for  choice  a  successful 
financier.  His  record,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  would  not  matter 
in  the  least ;  what  seems  to  injure  a  man  is  that  he  should  have 
spent  an  honourable  existence  amongst  those  whom  he  seeks  to 
represent,  and  during  many  years  have  laboured  according  to  his 
lights  and  opportunities  for  the  best  interests  of  all  about  him. 
Then  he  may  look  to  be  rewarded  by  an  adverse  majority  of 
thirteen  hundred  votes. 

On  the  26th  I  went  over  to  Ditchingham,  and  found  that  the 
weather  has  been  as  cold  and  unseasonable  there  as  it  is  here  by 
the  sea.  The  crops  are  backward,  owing  to  the  complete  absence 
of  sunshine,  which  everything  needs  sorely.  The  trees,  however, 
are  coming  into  full  leaf,  except  the  ashes,  of  which  the  buds  are 
still  black  On  the  20th  there  was  a  tremendous  thunderstorm, 
with  a  perfect  flood  of  rain,  both  of  which  we  had  at  Kessingland 
also,  and  very  curious  it  seemed  in  such  cold  weather.  The  may 
is  only  beginning  to  show  in  the  hedges;  indeed,  never  do  I 
remember  summer  so  slow  in  coming.  On  the  farm  and  at 
Bedingham  we  have  been  drilling  swedes  and  white  turnips,  and 
the  two  remaining  mares  have  produced  their  foals  without 
accident. 

One  of  the  little  home-bred  steers  has  been  sold  to  the  butcher 
at  the  top  price  which  beef  commands  in  our  market — 7^.  a  stone. 
Its  dead  weight  proved  to  be  fifty-one  stone,  which  for  an  animal 
little  over  two  years  old,  that  has  not  been  in  any  way  forced, 
I  consider  very  satisfactory.     Two  cows  have  also  been  sold,  one 


AfAY  207 

for  14/.  and  the  other  for  11/.  The  latter  of  these  was  old 
New-born  Pride,  the  mother  of  the  herd  and  once  the  best  animal 
in  it.  It  goes  to  my  heart  to  have  parted  with  her,  and  I  am  glad 
that  I  was  away  and  knew  nothing  of  it,  for  I  understand  that  she 
was  bought  for  butcher's  meat,  and  by  now  doubtless  has  been 
killed  and  eaten.  In  farming,  unfortunately,  there  is  no  room  for 
sentiment ;  if  an  animal  ceases  to  be  profitable  it  must  go  for  the 
best  price  that  it  will  fetch,  though  when  one  has  been  accustomed 
to  it  for  many  years  this  seems  hard.  Exit  New-born  Pride  in 
the  twentieth  year  of  her  age.  I  wonder  how  long  a  healthy  cow 
would  last  if  well  cared  for  and  fed  ?  Nobody  seems  to  know, 
because  nobody  has  ever  tried,  but  I  imagine  that  it  would  live 
for  thirty-five  or  forty  years.  '  New-born  '  was  only  in  late  middle- 
life.  Old  age  still  stretched  before  her.  Had  she  been  placed  in 
a  home  for  superannuated  cows  I  believe  that  she  would  have 
flourished  well  into  the  next  century.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  that 
if  we  had  kept  her  she  might  have  produced  several  more  calves, 
perhaps  four  or  five  ;  but  after  a  certain  period  of  life  the  milk 
of  cows  becomes  thin  and  almost  worthless,  also  their  calves 
are  small.     Therefore  they  have  to  go. 

On  the  same  day,  the  i6th,  ten  lambs  were  sold  at  30J. 
each ;  a  fair  price,  as  the  trade  in  lambs  is  not  brisk  this  year. 

We  are  now  making  about  67  lb.  of  butter  a  week,  which  is 
fetching  tenpence  and  elevenpence  a  pound. 

To-day  the  weather  is  still  very  cold  and  dull,  and  since  nine 
o'clock  I  think  that  at  one  time  and  another  the  wind  has  blown 
from  every  point  of  the  compass ,  while  after  sunset  a  violent  storm 
of  rain  came  up  out  of  a  sky  of  extraordinary  and  vivid  blackness. 
I  never  remember  a  month  of  such  wretched  weather  as  we  have 
experienced  this  May,  which  has  not  brought  us  a  single  breath 
of  summer.  I  have  not  kept  any  record  of  the  readings  of  the 
thermometer,  but,  if  I  may  judge  by  my  own  sensations,  I  think 
that  the  temperature  of  May  has  been  colder  and  more  miserable 
than  was  that  of  last  December. 

This   afternoon   I  walked   up  the  beach  to  a  beautiful   spot 


2o8  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

called  Benacre  Broad,  about  three  miles  away.  Here  is  a 
large  stretch  of  reed-fringed  water  embraced  by  trees  as  by  great 
green  arms,  which  gradually  grow  thinner  and  cease  where  they 
project  from  the  shelter  of  the  land  and  are  exposed  to  the  fury  of 
the  easterly  gales  that  break  upon  them  laden  with  salt  spray 
lifted  from  the  sea.  Between  the  Broad  and  the  ocean  lie  sand- 
dunes  clothed  with  coarse  grass  and  tenanted  by  rabbits,  and  for 
the  populous  coast  of  Suffolk  the  view  from  these,  with  the  peace- 
ful wood-encircled  lake  upon  one  side  and  the  limitless  waste  of 
water  on  the  other,  is  extraordinarily  wild  and  lonely. 

One  of  the  charms  of  these  Broads  lies  in  the  number  of  rare 
birds  that  still  breed  about  them.  As  we  walked  across  the  sand- 
dunes  this  afternoon  I  saw  two  tiny  creatures  running  swiftly  in  the 
grass.  Going  to  the  spot  we  could  not  find  them,  till  presently  they 
started  up  beneath  our  very  feet,  and  on  being  captured  proved 
to  be  recently  hatched  peewits,  lovely  little  things,  with  long  legs 
and  large  eyes,  that,  young  as  they  were,  had  learned  to  hide 
themselves  in  such  a  fashion  as  to  be  almost  indistinguishable  from 
the  sand  in  which  they  crouched. 

All  this  while  the  old  mother  peewit  was  watching  us,  and  now, 
in  great  excitement,  she  came  circling  and  calling  about  our  heads. 
Letting  her  chicks  run  we  stood  still,  whereupon  she  went  through 
every  possible  manoeuvre  to  draw  us  away  from  the  patch  of  gorse 
in  which  they  had  taken  refuge.  I  noticed,  however,  that  although 
she  settled  within  a  few  yards  of  us,  but  always  in  an  opposite 
direction  to  that  where  the  little  ones  lay  hid,  she  did  not  pretend 
to  be  wounded,  and  flop  along  the  ground  as  though  her  wing  or 
leg  were  broken,  as  I  have  frequently  seen  plover  do  in  Africa. 
This  habit  seems  to  suggest  a  knowledge  on  their  part  that  man 
wishes  to  capture  them  for  his  own  evil  purposes.  In  the  case  of 
partridges,  which  also  feign  to  be  hurt  under  similar  circumstances, 
one  can  understand  this  knowledge,  since  they  have  been  hunted 
for  many  generations ;  but  in  the  wild  parts  of  South  Africa,  where 
they  have  scarcely  been  disturbed  from  the  beginning  of  time — 
for  the  natives  rarely  interfere  with  such  small  game — so  intimate 


MAV  209 

an  acquaintance  with  the  unfriendly  designs  of  men  strikes  me 
as  very  strange. 

Near  the  edge  of  the  mere  I  put  up  two  birds  that  were  quite 
unfamiliar  to  me.  They  rose  from  the  ground,  and  seemed  to 
resemble  a  nightjar  in  shape  and  flight.  Also  there  were  more 
fowl  flying  about,  with  which  I  am  unacquainted,  in  appearance 
like  a  large  snipe,  but  having  white  fringed  wings.  Evidently 
they  were  nesting  amongst  the  rushes,  whence  came  the  sound  of 
ducks  and  other  birds  moving  to  and  fro. 

Of  late  years  there  has  been  a  great  outcry  about  the  closing  of 
some  of  the  Norfolk  Broads  to  the  public,  and  the  claim  advanced 
by  their  owners  to  exclusive  sporting  rights  upon  them. 
Doubtless  in  some  cases  it  ha^  seemed  a  hard  thing  that  people 
should  be  prevented  from  doing  what  they  have  done  for  years 
without  active  interference  on  the  part  of  the  proprietor.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  is  only  recently 
the  rush  of  tourists  to  the  Norfolk  Broads  has  begun.  It  is  one 
thing  to  allow  a  few  local  fishermen  or  gunners  to  catch  pike  or  bag 
an  occasional  wild  fowl,  and  quite  another  to  have  hundreds  of 
people  whipping  the  waters  or  shooting  at  every  living  thing,  not 
excluding  the  tame  ducks  and  swans.  For  my  part  I  am  glad 
that  the  owners  have  succeeded  in  many  instances,  though  at  the 
cost  of  some  odium,  in  keeping  the  Broads  quiet,  and  especially  the 
smaller  ones  Hke  Benacre,  because  if  they  had  failed  in  this  most 
of  the  rare  birds  would  be  driven  away  from  Norfolk,  where  they 
will  now  remain  to  be  a  joy  to  all  lovers  of  Nature  and  wild  things. 

These  remarks,  I  admit,  however,  should  scarcely  lie  in  my 
mouth  when  speaking  of  Benacre,  since  on  our  return  towards  the 
beach,  after  rambling  round  the  foot  of  the  mere,  we  found  our- 
selves confronted  with  sundry  placards  breathing  vengeance  upon 
trespassers,  warnings,  it  would  seem,  which  we  had  contemp- 
tuously ignored.  Should  these  hnes  ever  come  under  the  notice 
of  the  tenant  of  that  beautiful  place,  I  trust  that  he  will  accept 
my  apologies,  and  for  this  once  '  let  me  off  with  a  caution.' 


2IO  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

I  do  not  know  many  sayings  connected  with  May.     One  of 
the  few,  however, 

Ere  May  be  out 
Cast  not  a  clout, 

has  been  peculiarly  applicable  this  year.  In  a  paper  on  the  saws 
and  proverbs  of  Norfolk,  by  Mr.  Gillett,  I  find  another,  that  I 
never  heard  before,  but  which  doubtless  is  true  enough  for  the 
ailing  and  weakly  in  our  climate  : 

March  will  sarch  ye  ; 

April  will  try ; 
May  will  tell  ye 

\¥hether  ye'U  live  or  die. 

Indeed,  to  my  mind,  the  cold  of  fhe  bitter  and  uncertain  month 
of  May  is  the  most  trying  of  all  the  English  year,  perhaps  because 
it  comes  at  the  end  of  our  long  and  tedious  winter,  when  the 
systems  of  most  people  are  more  or  less  run  down.  The  best- 
known  proverb  for  this  month,  however,  is. 

If  the  oak  is  out  before  the  ash, 
Then  you'll  only  get  a  splash  ; 
But  if  the  ash  is  before  the  oak, 
Then  you  will  surely  have  a  soak. 

This  year  the  oak  has  been  much  before  the  ash. 


2IT 


JUNE 

June  2.— Yesterday  proved  about  the  fiercest  first  of  June  that 
I  remember,  for  the  weather  was  cold,  with  a  gale  of  wind 
blowing  from  the  west,  and  occasional  squalls  of  violent  rain. 
The  night  also  was  very  bitter.  Riding  from  Kessingland  home  on 
a  bicycle  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind  I  found  most  excellent  exercise. 

This  morning  I  walked  round  the  farm.  Notwithstanding 
the  unseasonable  weather,  the  grass  grows  thick  and  strong,  but 
then  grass  does  not  mind  cold  ;  drought  is  its  great  enemy.  I 
do  not  think  that  I  ever  saw  more  beautiful  turf  than  is  to  be 
found  in  the  sheltered  parts  of  Iceland  ;  where  the  hay  also 
is  good,  although  it  does  not  grow  high,  and  on  account  of 
the  hummocks  raised  by  the  action  of  frost  must  be  laboriously 
cut  with  a  sickle.  Yet  in  Iceland — or  at  any  rate  in  some  parts 
of  it — the  subsoil  remains  frozen  for  the  greater  part  of  the 
year.  I  remember  once,  towards  the  end  of  the  month  of  June, 
digging  on  the  site  of  Bergsthorsknoll,  which  eight  hundred  years 
or  so  ago  was  the  home  of  Njal,  the  hero  of  the  saga  of  that 
name  (in  my  opinion  one  of  the  greatest  books  that  ever  was 
written),  to  seek  for  proof  of  the  legend  of  the  burning  of  the  hall 
by  Flosi. 

This  I  found  readily  enough,  for,  at  a  depth  of  about  two  feet 
beneath  the  surface,  we  came  upon  the  hard  earthen  floor  of  the 
hall,  still,  to  all  appearance,  sprinkled  with  a  fine  layer  of  black 
sand,  which,  if  I  remember  right,  the  saga  tells  us  was  strewn 
upon  it  by  the  hands  of  Bergthora  and  her  household  nearly  nine 
hundred  years  ago  ;  and  among  the  crumbling  fragm.ents  of  the 
fire- blackened  timbers  of  the  roof,  lumps  of  greasy  matter,  sup- 


212  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

posed  by  the  chemists  who  have  analysed  them  to  be  the  residue 
of  the  whey  that  the  wom.en  threw  upon  the  flames.  Breaking 
through  the  floor,  and  but  a  little  below  it,  although  it  was 
midsummer,  we  found  the  ground  still  hard  with  frost,  which, 
perchance,  was  last  thawed  upon  the  day  of  the  great  burning. 
Yet  the  giass  grows  and  the  flowers  spring  in  Iceland  ! 

The  wheats  are  looking  strong,  and  keep  their  colour,  but 
the  barleys,  for  the  most  part,  have  an  unwholesome  yellow  tinge, 
especially  upon  heavy  lands.  Indeed,  everything  is  very  back- 
ward, for  even  now  the  ash  trees  are  not  fully  out,  and  the  haw- 
thorns are  but  breaking  into  bloom.  The  beet  plant  has  suffered 
much  from  the  sunless  cold,  and  is  still  very  small.  Weeds,  how- 
ever, flourish  like  the  wicked,  particularly  on  Baker's  land,  where 
the  men  are  engaged  in  hoeing  in  a  perfect  sea  of  them.  This 
wet  weather  is  most  unfavourable  for  the  work,  for  weeds  are 
gifted  with  a  wonderful  vitality,  and  when  the  soil  is  damp,  to  cut 
them  out  is  frequently  but  to  transplant  them  from  the  ridges  to 
the  furrows.  Still,  it  must  be  done,  or  they  would  smother  the  poor 
little  beet ;  and  afterwards,  when  they  are  rooting  in  the  furrows 
and  congratulating  themselves  upon  having  survived  the  violence 
of  man,  the  horse-hoe  will  come  along  and  put  them  to  sleep. 

On  the  Thwaite  field,  No.  28,  the  swedes  are  beginning  to  prick 
through  on  the  ridges— delicate  little  two-leaved  seedlings,  with 
the  '  fly '  and  all  their  other  troubles  before  them.  To-day  the 
sheep  were  to  have  been  clipped,  but  the  shearers  did  not  put  in 
an  appearance,  which,  considering  the  state  of  the  weather,  is 
perhaps  fortunate. 

It  is  curious  to  walk  from  the  uplands  down  the  Vineyard  Hills 
and  to  note  the  difference  in  the  state  of  vegetation  beneath  their 
shelter.  There  the  trees  are  in  full  leaf  and  looking  lovely,  the 
chestnuts  being  covered  with  their  stately  spires  of  bloom,  and  the 
scented  hawthorns  almost  hidden  in  white  flower.  The  garden  of 
the  Lodge  also  is  much  more  forward  than  that  of  this  house,  and 
one  can  linger  there  without  shivering. 

This  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham,  and  was  caught  in  a 


JUNE  213 

violent  thunder-shower  for  my  pains.  The  young  red-polls— they 
are  eleven— are  running  in  the  new  pastures,  Nos.  15  and  16, 
during  the  day,  and  in  the  wood  at  night.  As  at  Ditchingham, 
the  barleys  show  yellow,  though  No.  5,  which  was  sown  first,  and 
has  received  a  dressing  of  artificial  manure,  looks  much  the  best ; 
while  the  wheats,  that  in  most  seasons  love  this  heavy  land,  keep 
their  colour,  and  are  growing  tall  and  strong.  If  we  get  little 
else,  at  least  this  year  there  should  be  plenty  of  straw,  which  now- 
adays is  often  almost  as  valuable  as  the  grain.  The  beans  seem 
a  splendid  crop,  as  they  have  done  from  the  first,  and  are  in 
flower.  Two  of  the  little  beasts  that  are  fattening  in  the  hovel — I 
do  not  think  that  they  number  much  more  than  twenty  months — 
have  been  sold  for  14/.  apiece,  while  their  elder  brother,  Royal 
Duke,  the  ox  that  I  kept  to  show,  has  much  improved  in  appear- 
ance. This  I  attribute  to  his  having  been  removed  from  the 
barn — where  he  lived  alone,  pining  for  lack  of  companionship  — 
and  placed  in  a  shed  with  another  animal.  Since  the  change  he 
has  eaten  much  better,  and  his  quarters,  which  were  always  a 
little  slack,  are  beginning  to  fill  out,  although  at  present  they 
cannot  compare  with  his  fore  part,  which  is  really  magnificent. 

June  4. — The  night  before  last  there  was  another  frost,  of  the 
kind  that  is  known  here  as  '  water '  frost,  the  ground  being  white 
with  it  early  in  the  morning.     Of  such  is  the  summer  in  England. 

Yesterday  we  were  ploughing  in  the  manure  for  the  swedes  on 
the  top  of  No.  24,  the  Bungay-fork  field,  and  hoeing  in  the  All 
Hallows  field,  No.  29,  and  on  Baker's. 

The  trees  have  all  been  gilled  from  the  Bath  Hills  into 
the  stackyard,  where  Hindle,  the  captain  of  the  steam  engine, 
and  his  two  mates  are  engaged  in  getting  them  ready  for  the 
steam  saw  by  sawing  off  the  butts,  cutting  the  timber  into 
suitable  lengths,  and  chopping  away  excrescences  upon  one  side 
of  them,  so  that  they  may  '  ride  '  easily  upon  the  iron  table.  As 
the  turn  of  each  tree  comes,  Hindle  makes  up  his  mind  into  what 
kind  of  stuff  it  will  cut  to  the  best  advantage.      This  requires  a 


214  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

good  deal  of  judgment  and  experience,  especially  in  the  case  of  a 
rather  scrappy  lot  of  thinnings,  which  includes  every  class  of 
wood,  such  as  we  have  to  saw  this  year.  One  or  two  of  the  best 
oaks  are  set  aside  to  rip  into  three-inch  planks,  and  others  to  be 
converted  into  the  backs  and  ledges  of  gates,  while  the  tops  and 
butts  make  gate-  or  rail-posts.  What  we  chiefly  need  this  year, 
however,  are  long  posts  to  carry  the  galvanised  iron  roofs  of  the 
sheds  which  I  hope  to  cover  over,  so  most  of  the  oaks  are  to  be 
devoted  to  this  purpose.  The  inferior  woods,  such  as  elm  and 
beech,  cut  into  very  good  bed-  or  wall-plates,  rafters,  and  scant- 
lings ;  indeed,  if  kept  dry  under  cover,  they  will  last  for  two  genera- 
tions. Limes,  again,  may  be  sawn  into  boards  to  be  used  for 
inside  work  in  sheds,  while  all  the  refuse  that  can  be  put  to  no 
other  use  is  sliced  into  blocks  for  firewood.  I  forgot  to  mention 
that  the  ash,  which  is  our  most  valuable  timber,  is  ripped  into 
three-inch  stuff  and  then  laid  aside  under  shelter  to  season,  with 
little  pieces  of  wood  between  the  planks  to  keep  them  apart  and 
allow  the  air  to  circulate.  Ash  is  the  best  wood  in  the  world,  or 
at  any  rate  in  England,  for  use  in  the  frames  of  agricultural 
implements,  the  shafts  of  carts,  or  for  any  purpose  where  tough- 
ness and  pliability — '  twig  '  is  the  local  term — are  needed. 

To-day  we  have  been  baulk-splitting,  cutting  out  thistles,  and 
shearing  the  sheep.  This  latter  is  done  by  a  gang  of  shearers,  four 
in  number,  who  travel  with  a  pony  and  cart  from  farm  to  farm,  clip- 
ping the  sheep  at  a  charge  that  averages  about  threepence  a 
fleece.  The  operation  is  carried  out  thus  :  first  the  ewes — for  of 
course  the  lambs  are  not  clipped — are  penned  in  one-half  of  the 
All  Hallows  barn,  their  offspring  remaining  outside,  where  they 
make  a  fearful  din,  auguring  the  very  worst  from  this  separation. 
A  boy — the  invariable  boy  who  always  appears  upon  these  occa- 
sions— steals  in  delightedly  to  catch  a  ewe.  As  soon  as  they  see 
him  the  whole  flock  rush  about  madly,  as  though  they  were 
executing  a  particularly  confused  set  of  kitchen  lancers ;  but  when 
once  he  has  gripped  one  of  them,  after  a  few  struggles  she  more 
or  less  resigns  herself,  and  without  any  great  resistance  is  half  led, 


JUNE  215 

half  dragged  through  the  open  hurdle  to  the  malevolent-looking 
person  who,  like  one  of  the  Roman  Fates,  is  waiting  for  her  with 
the  shears.  He  seizes  her,  and  with  an  adroit  and  practised 
movement  causes  her  to  sit  upon  her  tail,  in  which  position  most 
ewes  look  extraordinarily  foolish.  Now  she  struggles  no  more, 
nor  does  she  make  any  noise ;  indeed,  in  watching  the  operations 
this  morning  I  was  put  very  forcibly  in  mind  of  the  prophetic 
verse  in  Isaiah  :  '  As  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb.' 

The  operator  begins  his  task  in  the  region  of  the  belly,  working 
gradually  round  towards  the  back  until  it  is  necessary  to  turn  the 
animal  on  to  her  side,  when  he  ties  the  fore  and  hind  leg  together 
with  a  thin  cord.  In  the  case  of  old  and  experienced  ewes  I  am 
sure  that  they  understand  what  is  happening  to  them,  as  they  look 
quite  contented  and  struggle  little — indeed,  the  shearers  say  that 
this  is  so.  The  moment  that  the  thing  is  done — which  seems  to 
prove  it — they  spring  up  with  blitheness,  and,  rushing  from  the 
barn,  begin  to  bite  hungrily  at  the  grass  outside. 

It  is  funny  to  watch  the  behaviour  of  the  lambs  that  are  wait- 
ing without.  One  by  one  they  approach  the  escaped  ewe,  till  at 
last  its  own  offspring  finds  her.  It  takes  a  lamb  a  while,  however, 
to  convince  itself  that  this  strange,  naked-looking  creature  is  in  truth 
its  dear  mamma ;  indeed,  not  until  it  has  smelt  her  all  round,  and, 
thankful  to  find  that  something  is  left,  knelt  down,  and  with  an  air 
of  relief  helped  itself  to  refreshment,  does  conviction  conquer 
doubt.  The  ewes  often  seem  to  resent  these  suspicions ;  probably 
their  tempers,  having  been  tried  to  breaking-point,  will  bear  no 
further  strain. 

The  shearers  who  make  up  these  travelling  gangs  are  very  in- 
telligent men,  moving  as  they  do  from  place  to  place,  seeing  much 
and  knowing  everybody.  Also,  as  might  be  expected  from  the 
nature  of  their  trade,  they  are  capital  gossips.  I  asked  one  of 
them  if  a  certain  person  who  owns  a  great  flock  of  sheep  was  a 
good  farmer. 

*  Oh,  he  puts  it  in  and  takes  it  out,'  answered  the  old  gentleman 
enigmatically. 


2i6  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

'  No,  partner,'  interrupted  another  man,  '  he  dew  take  plenty 
out  for  sure,  but  I  never  did  hear  that  he  put  nawthing  in,'  thereby 
in  a  sentence  summing  up  the  character  which  report  gives  to  this 
tiller  of  the  soil. 

The  average  weight  of  a  ewe's  fleece  is  from  four  to  five  pounds  ; 
but  I  believe  that  the  fleeces  of  hoggets,  that  is,  year-old  sheep 
which  have  never  been  shorn  before,  sometimes  weigh  as  heavy  as 
fifteen  pounds. 

While  I  was  leaning  this  afternoon  over  one  of  the  pit-field 
gates  (No.  25)  I  was  much  struck  by  the  curious  contrasts  of  the 
lights  and  colours.  The  order  of  Nature  seemed  to  be  reversed  ; 
the  light  lay  upon  the  land,  the  sky  was  dark.  The  air  was  very 
still  and  heavy,  and  in  the  sou'-western  heaven  a  dense  thunder- 
cloud brooded  like  the  shadow  of  advancing  night.  Against  this 
lowering  sky  the  red  sheep-rack  made  a  patch  of  brilliant  colour, 
while  Peachy  and  his  horses  baulk-splitting  beyond  it  were  out- 
lined with  singular  clearness  upon  a  vivid  green  background  of 
sprouting  oaks  and  the  long  line  of  hedgerow  elms.  All  round, 
indeed,  appeared  different  shades  of  green,  strangely  varied  and 
distinct  in  the  low  lights  flung  through  the  pall  of  overhanging 
thunder-cloud.  Thus,  to  the  left  appeared  the  bright  green  of  the 
sheep's-feed  and  the  grey-green  of  the  bordering  land,  where, 
although  it  has  been  fed,  the  corn  is  springing  again  at  the 
roots,  and  contrasted  with  the  yellowish  green  of  the  barley  in  the 
immediate  foreground  ;  while  beyond  this,  in  the  middle  distance, 
another  patch  of  colour  was  furnished  by  the  faded  pink  of  the 
double  roller  standing  with  its  shafts  pointing  to  the  sky.  Among 
this  barley  two  labourers,  an  old  and  a  young  man,  waded  slowly 
side  by  side,  cutting  thistles  with  their  hooked  spuds.  Thus  they 
went  like  dream  figures  silently  through  the  silent  corn,  never 
speaking,  and  only  halting  now  and  again  to  file  their  spuds, 
till  at  length  they  came  to  the  foot  of  the  field,  and  having 
thrown  the  bunches  of  docks  gathered  in  their  left  hands  upon 
its  fence  to  wither  in  the  sun,  turned,  as  though  at  a  word  of  com- 
mand, and  once  more  began  their  search  up  the  long  slopes  of  green. 


JUNE  217 

As  I  stood  quite  still  watching  them,  two  larks  that  had  been 
fighting  at  a  distance  came  twisting  through  the  air,  and  passed  so 
close  to  me  that  their  flapping  wings  almost  touched  my  head. 
Not  more  than  an  inch  or  so  above  the  barley  also  skimmed  a 
pair  of  swallows  hawking  after  flies,  their  little  bodies  shining  like 
flakes  of  tempered  steel  as  they  flashed  by  me.  It  was  curious  to 
see  how,  without  any  apparent  movement  of  the  wings,  they 
glided  in  a  curve  from  the  level  of  the  corn  over  the  round  top 
of  the  root  hale  to  the  left,  down  the  open  end  of  which  the  yellow 
mangold  are  rolled  into  a  slanting  golden  heap.  And  all  along 
the  hedgerow  the  little  may  trees  that  I  have  grown  stood  out 
like  bouquets  of  white  bloom,  while  from  the  copse  of  Hollow 
Hill  beyond  rose  the  song  of  the  nightingale,  sounding  loud  and 
sweet  in  that  heavy  silence. 

A  little  higher  up  the  hill  is  the  bean  field,  No.  26,  just  now 
full  of  bloom,  that  gives  out  what  I  think  one  of  the  sweetest  of 
perfumes.  A  person  standing  near  these  beans  on  such  a  day 
becomes  aware  of  a  humming  noise,  which,  on  examination,  he 
will  find  to  be  caused  by  bees  passing  from  flower  to  flower. 
There  seemed  to  be  several  bees  to  each  stalk,  and  how  many 
tens  of  thousands  of  stalks  stand  in  a  six-acre  field  I  should  not 
care  to  calculate.  Where  do  all  the  bees  come  from,  I  wonder  ? 
I  and  a  few  others  have  some  hives,  but  bees  are  not  largely  kept 
in  the  village.  Yet  in  that  close  alone  their  number  must  be 
almost  countless. 

I  walked  back  over  the  root  field,  No.  23,  that  which  we  dosed 
with  Bungay  refuse,  the  excellent  and  invigorating  qualities 
of  which  are  evident  just  now  in  a  magnificent  crop  of  the  most 
flourishing  weeds.  The  beet  here,  as  elsewhere,  are  very  small, 
owing  to  the  coolness  of  the  season.  Also  I  fear  that  the  birds 
have  done  them  a  good  deal  of  damage,  for  this  field  lies  so  quiet 
and  secluded  that  they  can  work  mischief  without  fear  of  disturb- 
ance. Needless  to  say  they — especially  the  sparrows  -  take  full 
advantage  of  their  opportunities,  although  I  daresay  that  there  are 
still  enough  mangolds  left  for  a  plant. 


2i8  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Jime  6. — Yesterday  was  warm  and  beautiful,  a  very  oasis  in 
the  desert  of  this  year's  cold  and  gloom.  This  morning  also  was 
warm,  but  the  afternoon  weather  has  been  diversified  with  thunder 
and  heavy  showers  of  rain  and  hail,  that  do  much  injury  to  the 
young  beet  by  splitting  up  and  spoiling  them. 

I  have  been  watching  the  swallows  laying  the  foundations  of 
their  nest  in  the  porch  of  the  house.  I  did  not  think  that  they 
would  build  here  this  year,  as  the  nests  had  been  knocked  down 
by  workmen,  and  I  imagined  that  the  smell  of  recent  paint  would 
not  be  to  their  taste.  They  have  come  back,  however,  and  com- 
menced the  work  by  plastering  two  little  heaps  of  mud  at  a  dis- 
tance of  about  two  inches,  which  are  gradually  brought  together 
into  an  arch  designed  to  bear  the  weight  of  the  nest.  It  makes 
one  wonder  where  they  learned  architecture. 

These  swallows  are  very  curious  birds.  For  so  long  as  I 
have  known  this  house  four  or  five  pairs  of  them  have  built 
about  it,  and  always  in  the  same  places.  Once,  when  the  house 
was  let,  the  tenant  would  not  suffer  them  in  the  porch  because  of 
the  dirt  they  made ;  but  so  soon  as  he  was  gone  they  returned,  al- 
though it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  more  inconvenient  spot,  as  they 
are  constantly  disturbed  by  those  passing  out  and  in.  The 
puzzling  thing  is  that  their  number  never  seems  to  vary,  which 
inclines  me  to  think  that  in  order  to  live  in  comfort  they  require 
a  certain  area  of  ground  over  which  to  hawk.  What  I  should  like 
to  know,  however,  is  whether  they  are  always  the  same  swallows 
that  return  spring  after  spring.  This,  I  think,  can  scarcely  be  the 
case,  since,  even  if  they  live  a  great  deal  longer  than  we  suppose, 
they  must  die  sometime  a  natural  death  or  meet  with  accidents. 
Yet  year  after  year  they  arrive,  two  by  two,  in  the  accustomed 
spots,  never  more  and  never  less  of  them,  and  that  these  are 
very  frequently  the  same  birds  I  am  convinced  by  observation, 
since,  in  the  early  spring,  I  have  often  watched  the  pair  in  the  porch. 
This  porch,  until  the  month  of  May,  is  protected  by  glass  doors, 
which  are  removed  for  the  summer.  When  the  swallows  come 
one  may  see  them  dipping  and  twittering  outside  these  doors, 


JUNE  219 

evidently  very  indignant  because  they  are  cut  off  from  their  lawful 
and  accustomed  habitation.  If  the  doors  are  set  open  they  will 
fly  in  once  or  twice  and  look  round,  after  which,  very  likely, 
there  is  nothing  more  to  be  seen  of  them  for  about  a  month, 
when  they  commence  to  nest. 

This  morning  I  walked  round  by  Baker's,  where  we  are  engaged 
in  a  desperate  struggle  with  the  millions  of  weeds  springing 
among  the  beet,  and  indeed  everywhere.  By  the  side  of  the  beans 
also  are  little  hales  of  docks,  pulled  from  among  them,  and  I 
daresay  that  more  are  left  than  have  been  taken.  If  '  one  year's 
weed  means  seven  years'  seed,'  how  many  years'  seed  will  be  fur- 
nished by  seven  years'  weed  ?  That  is  approximately  the  problem 
which  we  have  to  work  out  on  Baker's.  The  carrots  on  the 
Thwaite  field.  No.  28,  are  pricking  through  nicely,  hut  it  is 
difficult  to  horse-hoe  them  as  yet,  owing  to  the  extreme  fineness 
of  the  seedlings,  which  makes  a  mistake  with  the  knives  easy,  as 
the  hoer  cannot  always  see  where  the  lines  run.  Some  people 
sow  a  few  white  turnips  with  the  carrot  seed,  as  these,  being  large- 
leaved  and  growing  rapidly  among  the  tiny  carrots,  are  a  guide 
to  the  hoeman  and  to  the  lad  leading  the  horse.  We  did  so 
last  year,  but  I  believe  that  this  season  we  have  put  in  some 
parsnips  instead. 

Hood  has  visited  Loddon  market  to-day  for  the  first  time 
since  I  have  been  farming.  He  says  that  it  is  a  good  market, 
especially  for  pigs,  which  is  strange,  as  it  lacks  a  railway.  Our 
market  at  Bungay  seems  to  be  going  from  bad  to  worse  :  there  are 
few  sellers  and  hardly  any  buyers ;  indeed,  farmers  no  longer  send 
their  stock  there.  They  blame  the  auctioneer,  whether  rightly 
or  wrongly  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  think  it  very  possible  that  the 
slow  death  by  atrophy  of  this  market  is  due  to  natural  decay  con- 
sequent on  long-continued  agricultural  depression.  The  owner  of 
the  Corn -hall  told  me  the  other  day  that  he  lets  the  merchants' 
stands  where  they  do  business  on  Thursdays  for,  I  think,  about 
one-third  only  of  the  rent  received  by  his  father.  This  fact  alone 
is  eloquent  of  the  disaster  that  has  overtaken  us  all. 


220  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Hood  sold  the  wool  at  Loddon  at  eighteen  shillings  the  tod, 
or  two  stone.  This  is  a  very  poor  price,  less  by  half  a  crown  than 
we  got  last  year,  and  that  was  low  enough.  Wool,  it  is  explained, 
is  'down.'     There  is  no  profit  in  it  at  such  prices. 

The  gast  ewe  has  paid  for  the  neglect  of  her  maternal  duties 
by  being  sold  to  the  butcher  for  2/. — a  very  fair  price.  This 
evening  I  found  Hood  bargaining  with  a  young  man  who  wanted 
to  buy  a  lot  of  five  half-grown  pigs.  We  have  to  be  rid  of  them 
because  they  are  already  fat,  owing  to  the  quantity  of  milk  which 
they  get  here  at  the  Home  Farm.  As  the  ill  time  for  pork  is  at 
hand  it  would  probably  not  pay  to  kill  them  or  even  to  send  them 
to  London,  and  they  are  too  large  and  fleshy  to  stand  till  after 
harvest.  The  scene  at  the  sale  was  amusing  in  a  small  way.  The 
purchaser  had  arrived  in  a  cart,  in  which  a  young  woman  was 
seated,  and  stood  by  the  horse's  head.  Opposite  to  him,  awaiting 
offers  and  watching  his  customer's  face,  as  a  good  seller  ought  to 
do,  was  Hood. 

Young  man  (excitedly) :   '  61.  loj.  ? ' 

Hood  (staring  at  him  stonily  like  an  aggrieved  sphinx) :  ^  No.' 

Young  man  turns  his  cart  round,  then,  thinking  better  of  it, 
comes  forward  to  make  another  offer.     *6/.  15^".?' 

Hood  (loftily) :  '  You'd  best  go  home.  I've  told  you  seven's 
the  lowest' 

Young  man  rushes  to  horse's  head,  and  in  his  indignation 
drags  it  forward  so  violently  that  the  unsuspecting  young  woman 
on  the  seat  nearly  falls  backwards  out  of  the  cart.  Then  once 
more  reason  comes  to  his  aid  and  he  returns. 

Here  I  left  the  pair  confabulating.  When  I  passed  that  way 
again,  ten  minutes  afterwards,  Hood  informed  me  that  he  had 
parted  with  the  pigs  for  7/.,  'all  but  half-a-crown,'  which,  he  added, 
was,  in  his  opinion,  a  good  deal  more  than  their  value.  But  that 
was  2i  post  factum  view.  Pigs,  like  books,  have  their  fate.  These 
were  a  lucky  lot.  There  were  eleven  of  them  in  the  family,  of 
which  five  were  sold  a  good  while  back  at  i/.  apiece.  Five  more 
have  gone  to-day  for  61.  I'js.  6d.  the  parcel,  and  one,  valued  at 


JUNE  221 

i/.,  remains  at  the  Lodge,  where  it  is  kept  in  solitude,  a  dirty  and 
depressed-looking  animal,  to  consume  the  cabbage  stalks  out  of 
the  garden.  Their  food,  exclusive  of  the  separated  milk,  is 
estimated  to  have  cost  3/.,  which  leaves  the  net  return  from  the 
litter  at  9/.  17.?.  6d.  If  horn  and  corn  showed  so  fine  a  profit, 
farming  would  be  a  better  business  than  it  is.  Pigs  chance  to  be 
a  good  market  just  now,  though  a  little  while  ago  they  were  not 
worth  breeding.  They  have  fluctuated  thus  in  value  several  times 
since  I  began  to  farm ;  when  they  are  dear  the  supply  rushes  in 
from  abroad,  and  everybody  breeds  them,  until  they  become  a 
drug.  When  they  are  cheap,  on  the  other  hand,  the  foreigner 
ceases  to  export,  and  farmers  give  up  breeding  them  as  un- 
profitable, with  the  result  that  scarcity  ensues,  to  be  followed  in 
turn  by  a  plethora. 

/une  7. — To-day  I  have  been  watching  chaff  being  cut  with  the 
machine,  which  is  driven  by  one  of  the  horses,  who  walks  round 
and  round  with  a  melancholy  air.  For  some  years  we  had  trouble 
because  we  could  find  no  stone  or  other  material  that  would 
stand  the  constant  wear  of  the  animal's  feet,  till  at  length  we  hit 
upon  the  idea  of  sinking  the  butts  of  the  oaks  which  were  cut  down 
at  Bedingham  in  a  circle  for  it  to  walk  on.  This  was  some  winters 
ago,  but  as  yet  these  butts  show  no  appreciable  damage ;  indeed,  I 
fancy  that  they  will  last  a  good  deal  longer  than  any  of  us  who  set 
them  there.  The  chaff  we  are  now  cutting  is  two-thirds  of  vetches 
from  No.  21  field,  where  there  is  a  very  heavy  crop  of  them,  and 
about  one-third  of  hay.  This  mixture  the  young  cattle  in  the  yards 
and  the  other  things  eat  greedily  so  long  as  it  is  fresh,  after  which 
they  turn  from  it,  so  it  is  well  not  to  cut  up  too  much  at  a  time. 

The  steam-sawing  has  begun.  It  is  a  fascinating  sight  to  see 
the  circular  saw  eat  into  the  trees  as  they  are  pushed  against  it 
on  the  smooth  iron  table.  Some  people  complain  that  this  system 
of  cutting  is  more  wasteful  than  the  old  plan  of  two  sawyers  in  a 
pit,  and  no  doubt  the  saw  itself  is  thicker  and  makes  more  dust. 
On  the  other  hand,  however,  bits  of  timber  can  be  cut  with  the 


222  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

steam-saw  that,  on  account  of  the  awkwardness  of  their  size  or 
shape,  the  most  skilful  sawyers  in  the  world  could  not  deal  with ; 
moreover,  the  saving  of  time  and  labour  is  something  enormous. 
There  is  a  common  idea  that  any  labourer  can  cut  timber  with  a 
steam-saw,  but  this  is  not  the  case.  Doubtless  anyone  can  cut  it 
after  a  fashion,  but  to  make  the  most  of  the  stuff  and  avoid  spoil- 
ing any  requires  judgment,  eye,  and  experience. 

In  the  timber  room  of  the  Horse-buildings,  Robson,  the  labour- 
ing carpenter,  is  engaged  in  mending  the  wheels  of  an  old  pony- 
cart.  Now,  to  make  a  wheel,  or  even  to  set  some  spokes  in  it,  is 
a  thing  that  looks  easy,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  demands  much 
skill  and  practice ;  indeed  to  do  it  properly  is  something  of  a 
gift.  This  particular  wheelwright  is  only  a  hedge  carpenter,  with- 
out even  a  shop  of  his  own,  but  he  has  the  reputation  of  being 
able  to  '  set '  a  wheel  better  than  anyone  about  here,  and  certainly 
his  work  is  always  very  sound  and  good. 

Wheat  is  now  down  to  forty-seven  shillings  a  quarter,  after 
having  been  up  to  fifty-five  a  week  or  two  ago.  These  fluctuations 
show  how  artificial  was  the  violent  rise  in  price  and  what  an  un- 
certain crop  is  corn  in  these  days.  Before  the  year  is  out  it  may 
once  more  be  selling  at  twenty-five  shillings. 

This  evening  I  saw  five  curlew  passing  over  the  Bath  Hills 
and  travelling  sou'-west.  These  are  the  first  curlew  that  I  have 
ever  seen  in  this  neighbourhood,  though  some  months  ago  I  heard 
one  calling.  By  the  way,  when  shooting  at  Earsham  last  winter 
I  saw  four  wild  swans  flying  about  the  river,  and  a  beautiful  sight 
they  were.  But  these  lovely  birds  look  best  of  all  floating  like  foam 
on  the  black  breast  of  some  mountain-circled  tarn  in  Iceland. 

June  8. — To-day  we  have  been  horse-  and  hand-hoeing  on  the 
All  Hallows  field,  No.  29,  where,  although  I  believed  the  land  to 
be  clean,  plenty  of  weeds  have  put  in  an  appearance,  for  last  season's 
drought  and  this  season's  rain  have  brought  them  up  with  a  ven- 
geance. When  I  pointed  them  out.  Buck,  who  is  by  nature  a 
laudator  temporh  acti^  remarked  sarcastically  that  there  was  a  new 


JUNE  223 

kind  of  farming  nowadays  to  what  he  was  accustomed  to  when  he 
was  young,  '  farming  with  the  hoe  instead  of  with  the  plough,'  and 
that  was  what  made  the  weeds.  What  he  meant  was  that  in  the 
old  days  a  root-field  would  receive  three  or  four  ploughings  in 
addition  to  the  necessary  baulkings.  Doubtless  this  was  very 
good  for  it,  but  in  our  time  we  can  scarcely  afford  to  put  so  much 
labour  into  the  land,  which  will  not  pay  the  price.  This  field,  for 
instance,  has  been  only  twice  ploughed,  then  baulked  and  split 
back  (two  baulkings  are  supposed  to  equal  one  ploughing).  As 
it  is,  root  is  the  most  expensive  of  all  crops  to  grow,  because  of  the 
amount  of  labour  that  must  be  expended  between  the  preparation 
of  the  land  and  the  ultimate  'haling'  of  the  crop— often  an  uncer- 
tain one — to  say  nothing  of  the  value  of  the  necessary  manure. 
But  although  our  ancestors  did  well  enough  without  it  after  their 
own  fashion,  if  we  had  no  beet  and  swedes  our  farming  would,  I 
suppose,  come  to  an  end.  Root  culture  is,  after  all,  quite  a  modern 
thing ;  I  believe  that  it  only  began  in  the  time  of  Arthur  Young, 
about  a  hundred  years  ago.^ 

On  my  way  to  field  No.  22  I  passed  the  piece  of  beans,  No.  26. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  Holly  Lodge  drive  is  another  field  of 
beans  that  does  not  belong  to  me.  These  beans  the  farmer  sowed 
in  the  spring,  whereas  mine  were  got  in  last  autumn,  and  it  is 
extraordinary  to  see  the  difference  between  them  to-day,  the  latter 
being  almost  twice  the  height  of  rny  neighbour's.  This  goes  to 
confirm  the  local  prejudice  in  favour  of  autumn-sown  over  spring- 
drilled  beans ;  but  I  must  try  to  follow  the  fate  of  the  two  crops 
till  they  reach  the  barn-door,  which  will  put  the  matter  to  the 
test.  So  far  this  season  has  not  been  favourable  to  the  setting  of 
beans. 

The  beet  on  No.  22  are  sown  on  the  fiat,  and  not  on  baulks. 
Whitrup,  with  the  assistance  of  a  boy,  who  leads  tne  horse,  is 

'  In  the  General  Dictionary  of  Husbandry ,  published  by  Messrs.  Longman 
about  ninety  years  since,  I  find  that  there  is  no  entry  under  the  heads  of  Beet, 
Swedes,  or  Mangolds.  Turnips,  however,  are  fully  treated  of;  but  it  is 
mentioned  that  their  culture  is  of  quite  recent  date. 


224  A  PARMER'S    YEAR 

hoeing  them  with  the  flat-work  hoe,  which  has  two  knives  in 
the  centre  and  one  projecting  on  either  side. 

There  are  four  '  ringes,'  or  rows  of  plants,  to  a  '  stetch,'  that 
is  separated  from  the  next  stetch  by  a  furrow,  and  the  hoe  covers 
two  ringes  and  a  furrow,  or  a  whole  stetch  in  the  double  journey. 
The  two  centre  knives  clean  the  middle  ringe  completely,  while 
one  side  knife  cuts  that  portion  of  the  furrow  which  was  left 
untouched  on  the  last  journey  and  the  other  does  half  the  outer 
ringe,  which,  on  the  hoe  being  turned  at  the  end  of  the  field,  is 
completed  by  what  was  the  furrow-knife.  This  sounds  rather 
intricate,  but  in  truth  it  is  simple.  I  am  afraid,  however,  that  it 
is  not  possible  to  make  the  agricultural  process  of  flat-hoeing 
quite  clear  to  the  reader  without  the  help  of  diagrams. 

At  Bedingham  this  afternoon  I  found  the  colt  with  the  in- 
jured shoulder  in  a  fair  way  to  recovery.  It  would  have  been  a 
pity  had  it  been  otherwise,  for  he  is  bred  from  my  best  mare,  and 
likely  to  make  a  fine  animal.  The  farrier  thinks  that  his  shoulder- 
blade  was  cracked ;  if  so,  I  suppose  that  it  has  mended  up.  I 
have  never  heard  of  Rontgen  rays  being  applied  to  horses,  but  if 
the  animals  are  valuable  it  might  be  worth  while  to  try  them  in 
order  to  locate  such  injuries. 

Many  years  ago,  in  Africa,  I  owned  a  horse  of  great  beauty. 
It  was  a  powerful  creature,  with  an  arched  neck,  small  head,  very 
fine  legs,  and  round  hoofs,  not  unlike  the  fancy  horses  pictured 
by  Vandyke  and  other  early  artists.  Its  long  mane  and  tail  also 
were  snow-white  and  crimped,  while  its  colour  varied  from  a  dark 
cream  in  winter  to  a  black  roan  in  summer.  This  animal  I  was  so 
unfortunate  as  to  lose  through  the  carelessness  of  a  native  servant. 
Ultimately  it  was  found  about  fifty  miles  away,  and  pounded  in  a 
kraal  with  stone  walls  six  feet  high.  This  wall  it  tried  to  jump, 
and,  indeed,  did  jump,  but  in  the  efl'ort  cracked  its  shoulder- 
blade,  like  the  colt  at  Bedingham,  and  was  returned  to  me  dead 
lame.  A  gentleman  who  had  always  admired  it  very  much  offered 
me  twenty  pounds  for  it,  taking  the  chance  of  its  recovery,  which 
sum  I  accepted.     Six  months  or  so  afterwards  I  was  astonished 


JUNE  225 

to  see  the  late  Colonel  Weatherley  riding  off  at  the  head  of  his 
troop  to  the  Zulu  war  upon  this  very  horse.  Afterwards  he  was 
killed  from  its  back  at  Inhlobane ;  but  the  horse  escaped,  for  my 
friend  Sir  Melmoth  Osbom  ^  told  me  that  many  years  later  he 
recognised  it  in  the  possession  of  a  native  chief  in  Zululand,  of 
which  country  he  was  then  Governor.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with 
farming,  but  1  hope  that  I  may  be  forgiven  if  I  mention  a  sad 
incident  connected  with  that  disastrous  day.  With  Colonel 
Weatherley  was  his  young  son,  whose  name,  if  I  remember  right, 
was  Rupert,  a  delicate  lad  of  about  fifteen.  He  was  killed  by 
his  father's  side,  who  was  assegaied,  indeed,  in  attempting  to 
defend  him.  Ignorant  of  the  dreadful  slaughter  that  had  taken 
place  upon  the  mountain,  another  volunteer  corps,  which  had 
been  recruited  in  the  Transvaal,  approached  the  camp,  and 
among  them  an  elder  son  of  Colonel  Weatherley's,  who  had  been 
my  clerk  when  I  was  master  of  the  Transvaal  High  Court.  This 
corps  meeting  a  number  of  saddled  and  bridled  runaway  horses, 
young  Weatherley  caught  one  of  them,  a  good-looking  pony,  and 
rode  it  into  camp.  It  proved  to  be  the  animal  on  which  his 
brother  had  just  been  killed. 

Last  year  field  No.  21,  by  Websdill  Wood,  was  under  root, 
and,  the  summer  being  so  dry  and  favourable,  I  certainly  thought 
that  we  had  exterminated  every  weed  in  it.  Now  it  is  laid  down 
for  permanent  pasture  sown  with  the  barley  crop,  and,  although 
the  men  have  been  through  it  with  their  spuds,  to  my  disgust  I 
perceive  a  number  of  thistles  and  some  coltsfoot  springing  among 
the  corn.  Truly,  of  weeds  there  is  no  end.  You  think  that  you 
are  rid  of  them,  but  deep  down  in  the  soil  their  roots  or  germs 
survive,  to  appear  again  the  next  wet  season.  The  kohl  rabi  are 
coming  up  on  the  new-drained  field,  No.  18,  though  not  with 
quite  so  thick  a  plant  as  I  should  like  to  see.  Moore  has  been 
horse-hoeing  them,  but  as  they  are  sown  on  the  flat  the  job  is 

'  I  grieve  to  state  that  I  must  now  say  *  my  late  friend,'  as  a  few  days  ago 
Sir  Melmoth's  death  was  rejxjrted  at  Durban,  in  Natal. 

June  15,  1899.  H.  R.  H. 

Q 


226  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

almost  as  difficult  as  it  was  in  the  case  of  the  carrots  here,  and  for 
the  same  reason.  I  walked  through  the  eight-acre  pasture, 
No.  1 1,  which  is  set  for  hay  and  promises  a  good  crop,  and  in 
doing  so  came  across  two  large  rings  of  extraordinarily  rich  grass 
where  grow  many  toadstools.  I  cannot  understand  w^hy  the  grass 
in  these  fairy-rings,  as  they  are  called,  should  be  so  much  more 
lush  than  that  about  it,  or  why  the  toadstools  should  spring  in 
such  a  perfect  circle. 

Last  night  we  had  a  great  trouble  with  the  swallows  in  the 
porch.  As  I  opened  the  door  to  see  out  some  friends  who  had 
been  dining  here,  one  of  the  swallows,  attracted  by  the  light  of 
the  lamp,  flew  from  the  nest  straight  into  the  house  and  up  the 
well  of  the  staircase,  where  it  began  to  flutter  about  in  a  piteous 
fashion.  Fearing  lest  it  should  burn  itself  or  break  its  wings, 
I  extinguished  the  lamps  and  set  the  windows  open,  believing 
that  in  the  quiet  of  the  early  morning  it  would  find  its  way  out. 
When  I  got  up,  about  seven  o'clock,  however,  there  was  the  poor 
little  thing  still  perched  upon  a  buffalo  horn.  In  vain  did  I  make 
the  most  desperate  endeavours  to  coax  it  out  of  the  house ;  it 
would  only  flutter  round  the  ceiling  or  knock  itself  against  the  top 
of  the  window,  until  I  thought  that  it  must  die  of  exhaustion. 
After  a  while  I  fetched  a  landing-net  and  tried  to  capture  it,  but 
it  was  too  quick  for  me.  At  last,  just  as,  wearied  out,  I  was 
thinking  of  abandoning  the  business  in  despair,  much  to  my  relief 
an  accidental  dip  took  it  through  the  open  window.  When  I  came 
down  to  breakfast  I  found  it  sitting  very  dazed  on  the  railings 
opposite  the  house.  Meanwhile  the  mate,  untroubled  by  the 
absence  of  its  partner,  had  been  diligently  building  at  their  nest, 
and  as,  after  the  terrifying  experiences  of  its  night  out,  it  could 
not,  or  would  not,  assist  in  that  domestic  duty,  the  other  flew  to 
it  on  the  railings,  and  sat  there,  twittering  and  scolding,  till  it 
plucked  up  courage  to  skim  away  and  secure  a  light  breakfast  of 
flies.  By  the  afternoon  it  had  recovered  so  completely  that,  in 
watching  them  at  work,  I  could  not  tell  which  of  the  pair  was  the 
captive  of  the  night  before. 


JUNE  227 

This  incident  suggests  that  the  intelligence  of  swallows,  great 
as  it  seems  in  many  ways,  must  be  curiously  limited.  Of  course, 
however  well  accustomed  to  the  place  it  was,  any  bird  might  make 
the  mistake  of  flying  into  the  house  when  suddenly  awakened  and 
bewildered  by  a  bright  light ;  but  it  is  strange  that,  although  it.  was 
left  in  peace  for  three  or  four  hours  in  the  early  morning,  it  should 
not  have  been  able  to  escape  through  the  open  window.  When  it 
is  in  the  porch  it  knows  the  difference  between  air  and  glass 
perfectly,  for  the  upper  part  of  the  hall-door  is  of  glass,  and  it 
never  makes  the  mistake  of  flying  against  it.  Also,  it  must  have 
seen  the  staircase  window  standing  open  on  many  occasions ;  and 
yet  I  believe,  had  it  not  been  for  my  exertions,  that  the  unhappy 
little  thing  would  have  staived  to  death  before  it  was  able  to  find 
its  way  through  it,  just  because  this  window  opens  in  its  lower  half 
and  not  up  against  the  ceiling. 

The  result  of  this  experience  is  that  the  swallows  remain  masters 
of  the  situation,  and  anyone  coming  into  or  leaving  the  house  after 
nightfall  has  to  do  so  by  the  garden  door. 

June  9. — To-day  at  the  Bench  we  tried  one  of  the  egg-stealing 
cases  which  are  always  plentiful  at  this  time  of  year.  The  defen- 
dant, a  'marine  dealer,'  was  accused  of  sending  a  box  of  251 
partridge  eggs  ('  twenty  dozen  smalls,  eleven  reds,'  i.e.  French 
partridge,  according  to  his  own  invoice  found  in  the  box)  to  another 
'  marine  dealer  '  in  a  neighbouring  town.  This  second  gentleman, 
by  the  way,  was  recently  fined  31/.  loi-.,  being  \s.  an  egg,  for  630 
stolen  eggs.  The  case  against  the  defendant  to-day  was  clear,  and 
he  also  was  fined  a  shilling  an  egg  and  costs,  with  the  alternative 
of  two  months  in  prison. 

I  know  it  is  commonly  said  that  magistrates  are  severe  upon 
this  class  of  case,  and  very  ready  to  convict  upon  slight  evidence. 
This  is  not  at  all  my  experience.  On  the  contrary,  the  fact  that 
most  of  them  are  sportsmen  tends  to  make  them  very  careful,  and 
I  have  on  several  occasions  seen  poaching  cases  dismissed  when 
the  evidence  would  have  been  thought  sufficient  to  ensure  convic- 

Q2 


228  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

tion  in  most  classes  of  offences.  It  is  extraordinary  what  an  amount 
of  false  sentiment  is  wasted  in  certain  quarters  upon  poachers, 
who,  for  the  most  part,  are  very  cowardly  villains,  recruited  from 
among  the  worst  characters  in  the  neighbourhood.  When  some 
friends  and  I  hired  the  shooting  at  Bradenham,  one  of  our  keepers, 
a  very  fine  young  fellow  named  Holman,  interrupted  a  gang  of 
poachers  engaged  in  killing  pheasants  at  night.  He  was  unarmed, 
and  they  were  armed,  and  the  end  of  it  was  that  one  of  them  fired 
a  gun  straight  at  him,  the  contents  of  which  he  only  escaped  by 
throwing  himself  behind  the  trunk  of  a  small  tree.  The  man  was 
identified,  and  tried  at  the  Assizes,  but  as  it  was  only  'a  night 
poaching  case,'  a  sentence  of  six  months  was  thought  to  be  sufficient 
punishment  for  this  vigorous  attempt  at  murder. 

Not  a  year  goes  by  without  keepers,  who  are  merely  doing  the 
duty  for  which  they  are  paid,  being  murdered  or  beaten  to  a  pulp 
by  these  bands  of  thieving  rascals,  who  are  out,  not  for  sport,  but 
for  gain.  Yet  bad  as  is  the  night-poaching  business,  the  trade  of 
the  egg-stealer  is  perhaps  even  more  despicable,  since,  as  I  told 
the  defendant  to-day,  not  only  was  he  himself  breaking  the  law, 
he  was  causing  many  others  to  break  it  also.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  these  large  lots  of  eggs  are  found  and  thieved  by  one 
man  ;  on  the  contrary,  a  system  of  '  feeders  '  is  necessary  to  their 
collection.  A  rascal  of  the  stamp  of  our  friend  the  '  marine  dealer ' 
is  in  touch  with  various  bad  characters  in  the  villages  round  about, 
who  suborn  labourers  to  find  the  nests  in  the  course  of  their  daily 
toil,  and  when  they  are  full  to  bring  away  the  eggs  at  night.  These 
in  due  course  reach  the  hands  of  the  middleman,  who  pays  for 
them  at  a  certain  tariff,  and  passes  them  on  to  some  honest 
merchant  who  does  a  larger  business.  Ultimately  they  find  their 
way,  either  through  game-dealers  or  by  the  agency  of  a  not  too 
scrupulous  head-keeper,  into  the  possession  of  the  tenants  of  great 
shootings  who  are  anxious  that  their  bags  should  be  big  in  due 
season,  and  try  to  increase  their  stock  of  partridges  by  buying 
eggs,  not  knowing,  of  course,  that  they  have  been  stolen,  very  fre- 
quently from  their  neighbours'  land,  and  sometimes  from  their  own. 


JUNE  229 

The  King's  Head  Hotel,  Bungay,  was  sold  again  to-day  with- 
out the  ruins,  which  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  keeps  in  his  own  hands. 
This  time  it  fetched  5,250/.,  as  against  the  former  price  of  6,800/. 
It  would  appear,  therefore,  that  the  Duke  must  write  off  a  loss  of 
at  least  1,050/.,  since,  sentiment  and  historical  associations,  which 
do  not  fetch  much  in  Bungay,  apart,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
value  the  site  of  the  old  castle  at  more  than  500/.  To  anyone  who 
has  it,  however,  it  is  worth  while  spending  a  thousand  or  so  to 
save  the  feudal  towers  of  his  ancestors  from  the  hands  of  the 
speculator  in  villas  and  licensed  premises. 

I  visited  this  afternoon  the  sheep  on  field  No.  24,  just  about 
the  time  when  they  were  waiting  to  be  let  into  the  new  pen. 
While  I  was  yet  a  great  way  off  they  saw  me,  and,  mistaking  me 
for  Hood,  raised  a  tremendous  baa-ing,  but  when  I  came  up  to 
them  and  they  found  out  their  error,  they  seemed  much  depressed. 
Presently  Hood  arrived,  and  the  baa-ing  re-commenced.  Now 
the  hurdles,  on  the  other  side  of  which  they  had  stood  for  hours, 
suffering  all  the  tortures  of  Tantalus,  were  withdrawn.  Heavens  ! 
how  they  rushed  through  the  gap,  grabbing  at  the  green  stuff  as 
they  ran,  and  knocking  each  other  aside  in  their  efforts  to  secure 
the  juiciest  tufts.  The  best  dispositioned  sheep,  alas  !  are  not 
altruistic  in  their  views.  They  fell  upon  that  patch  of  corn  like 
locusts ;  indeed,  anyone  unaccustomed  to  their  greed  would  have 
imagined  that  they  were  starving,  although  in  fact  their  condition 
is  excellent.  They  are  allowed  three  of  these  folds  a  day,  and 
clean  off  every  scrap  on  them  down  to  the  thistles. 

The  price  of  lambs  is  poor.  Now,  in  June,  I  cannot  get 
twenty-eight  shillings  apiece  for  them,  whereas  two  months  ago, 
at  Easter,  they  fetched  twenty-nine.  The  reason  of  the  fall  is 
the  coldness  of  the  weather ;  at  least  the  butchers  declare  that  in 
an  inclement  summer  like  the  present  the  public  has  no  fancy 
for  light  meat  such  as  lamb,  but  prefers  to  buy  beef  and  mutton. 

To-night  another  very  heavy  thunder  rain  is  falling,  which  is 
curious  after  so  cold  a  day.  This  weather  is  most  discouraging  to 
the   farmer,   as    with   such   continual    surface   wet   it   is   almost 


230  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

impossible  to  clean  the  land,  for  so  many  of  the  weeds  take  fresh 
root  wherever  the  hoe  has  left  them. 

June  lo. — Last  night's  rain  was  very  heavy  indeed ;  this 
morning  all  the  ditches  are  full,  and  I  expect  that  by  to-morrow 
the  floods  will  be  out  on  the  common.  To-day  the  weather  is 
clearing  a  little,  but,  notwithstanding  the  high  glass,  it  remains 
unsettled;  indeed,  this  year  the  glass  seems  a  very  uncertain 
guide.  As  the  men  cannot  stand  upon  the  land,  which  is  as  soft  as 
mud,  we  are  carting  manure  from  the  yards,  and  taking  the  oppor- 
tunity to  drag  up  some  of  the  docks  on  the  long  marsh.  This  is 
a  job  that  never  seems  to  get  itself  done,  as  there  is  always 
something  more  pressing  on  hand ;  also  docks  can  only  be  pulled 
while  the  land  is  very  soft,  and  when  the  marsh  is  being  fed. 
Even  then  the  dragging  out  of  these  fangy,  deep-rooted  weeds  is 
a  backbreaking  task,  of  which  three  hours  at  a  stretch  is  enough 
for  any  man. 

In  a  former  chapter  of  this  book  I  inveighed  against  the  per- 
vading dock,  asking  what  useful  part  it  can  possibly  perform  in  the 
economy  of  nature.  Many — very  many — kind  correspondents 
have  since  written  to  enlighten  me  on  the  point,  and  from  them 
I  learn  that  what  I  have  always  considered  a  pest  is,  it  appears,  a 
plant  of  extraordinary  value.  ^  To  begin  with,  there  are  eleven 
varieties  of  dock,  if  not  more  ;  various  grubs  and  caterpillars  feed 
upon  them,  and  they  have  medicinal  properties.  But  their  main 
use  is  the  discovery  of  that  excellent  institution  the  Colonial 
College  in  Suffolk,  who  have  found  out  that  one  British  variety 
of  dock  produces  four  times  as  much  tannin  as  does  oak  bark, 
which  tannin  is  believed  to  be  perfectly  suitable  to  trade  purposes 

'  One  of  these  letters  is  worthy  of  preservation.  It  begins,  '  I  notice  in 
the  East  Anglian  Daily  Times  that  you  would  like  to  know  what  good  Docks 
can  be  put  to.  What  will  you  giie  me  if  I  tell  you  ?  '  Oh,  careful  and  most 
provident  correspondent,  you  deserve  to  prosper  in  this  huckstering  world. 
Another  epistle  suggests  that  docks  might  be  destroyed  by  dropping  quicksilver 
upon  them,  or  that  I  '  might  try  inoculation  on  the  Pasteur  system '  I 


JUNE  231 

though  this  is  a  point  that  cannot  be  finally  decided  for  about 
a  year.  If  the  tannin  is  good,  behold  a  new  industry  !  But  any 
land  will  grow  docks — plant  them  once,  and  a  dozen  crops  might 
be  taken  in  succession.  Will  not  this  fact  be  apt  to  bring  down 
the  price  of  tannin  to  a  point  at  which  it  would  barely  pay  to 
extract  ? 

June  12. — Yesterday  the  land  was  still  too  wet  to  work  on, 
but  the  morning  proved  fine  and  breezy.  While  attending  the 
funeral  of  an  old  friend,  Mrs.  Scudamore,  the  widow  of  the  Rev. 
W.  E.  Scudamore,  the  author  of  'Notitia  Eucharistica,'  a  most 
learned  man,  and  for  many  years  the  loved  and  respected  rector 
of  this  parish,  I  noticed  two  hawks  hovering  near  the  cemetery. 
So  clear  and  blue  was  the  sky  that,  although  they  were  soaring 
high  in  heaven,  I  could  almost  see  each  feather  of  their  wings. 
I  trust  that  they  are  going  to  build  in  the  tower  of  the  church 
again,  as  they  did  for  several  years  in  succession,  but  for  aught  I 
know  this  may  be  another  pair.  Hawks  do  not  last  long  in 
Norfolk,  as  the  gamekeepers  wage  a  perpetual  war  against  them. 
To  my  mind  they  are  the  most  beautiful  of  all  birds,  if  the  most 
relentless.  Also  they  seem  to  be  ubiquitous.  I  never  remember 
travelling  in  any  part  of  the  world  where  I  did  not  find  a 
hawk,  or  his  big  brother,  the  eagle.  In  Iceland  you  see  them, 
splendid  solemn  fellows,  sitting  in  silence  on  desolate  crags,  among 
which  the  ravens  croak  incessantly ;  in  Egypt  they  sail  from  pylon 
to  pylon,  and  the  Nile  tourist  pots  them  perched  on  the  empty 
granite  shrine  of  Horus,  of  whom  for  thousands  of  years  they  were 
worshipped  as  the  incarnate  symbol.  But  I  think  that  South 
Africa  is  par  excellence  the  land  of  hawks,  where  I  fancy  they 
migrate  from  place  to  place  in  search  of  food.  At  least  I  can 
remember  riding  into  a  forest  grove  in  the  Transvaal  where  they 
were  gathered  by  the  hundred,  every  tree  being  brown  with  them, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  one  district  could  support  so 
many  for  more  than  a  few  days. 

Mrs.  Scudamore,  who  was  buried  yesterday,   when  she  wa? 


232  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

already  a  woman  in  middle  life  performed  a  feat  which  is  worthy 
of  record.  Over  a  period  of  years  she  lay  for  hours  at  a  time 
upon  her  back  in  a  cradle  slung  to  the  roof  of  the  chancel  in 
Ditchingham  Church,  every  inch  of  which  she  painted  by  hand. 
Already  her  labours  are  almost  forgotten,  although  the  result  of 
them  remains,  and  I  am  glad  that  she  has  found  her  last  resting- 
place  almost  in  the  shadow  of  the  fane  she  beautified. 

To-day,  Sunday,  is  very  cold  again,  with  a  thermometer  refusing 
to  rise  much  above  fifty.  In  the  afternoon  I  walked  to  see  how 
the  young  pheasants  were  getting  on,  and  found  that  many  of  them 
have  perished  owing  to  the  cold  and  wet,  which  Tommy,  the 
keeper's  son,  tells  me  have  made  them  liable  to  a  fatal  disease  in 
the  eyes.  He  says  also  that  they  have  been  greatly  troubled  by 
the  hawks,  of  which  he  and  his  father  have  shot  several.  One,  he 
informed  me  with  pride,  he  killed  himself  while  it  was  in  the  act 
of  flying  away  with  a  young  pheasant.  Strangely  enough,  the 
shot  passed  through  the  hawk's  head  without  injuring  the  chick 
in  its  talons,  which  is  now  running  about  with  the  rest  of  the 
brood. 

One  of  the  worst  sides  of  game-preserving  is  that  it  renders 
the  destruction  of  so  much  other  life  a  necessity.  For  this 
many  are  apt  to  blame  the  keepers ;  but  such  critics  should  re- 
member that,  like  the  rest  of  us,  the  gamekeeper  is  a  man  with 
his  bread  to  earn,  and  that  if  he  does  not  '  show  his  birds '  in  due 
season,  he  is  very  probably  requested  to  earn  it  elsewhere.  It 
is  therefore  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  logic  that  he  should 
be  severe  on  hawks  and  every  other  living  thing  which  he 
considers  unfriendly  to  the  well-being  of  pheasants,  partridges, 
and  hares.  For  my  own  part  I  think  that  he  is  a  little  indis- 
criminate, but  wherever  there  is  a  doubt  he  prefers  to  be  on  the 
right  side,  and  gives  it  in  favour  of  the  game.  Thus,  I  do  not 
believe  that  owls  work  any  considerable  harm  to  game,  yet  once 
when  I  advanced  this  view  to  a  keeper  in  my  employ,  he  gave  me 
a  striking  instance  to  the  contrary.  He  told  me,  and  I  always 
found  him  a  very  truthful  man,  that  once  he  watched  an  owl 


JUNE  233 

settle  on  a  coop  in  which  was  a  hen  with  a  brood  of  young 
pheasants,  and  beat  the  top  of  the  coop  with  its  wings,  until  the 
noise  frightened  the  chicks  that  were  nestling  beneath  their 
foster-mother's  feathers,  causing  them  to  run  out  through  the 
bars  to  seek  shelter  in  the  grass.  This  of  course  was  the  oppor- 
tunity of  that  wise  owl,  and  one  of  which  he  did  not  fail  to  avail 
himself.     It  was  also  the  opportunity  of  the  keeper. 

Whilst  walking  past  the  pond  in  the  farm  lane  my  attention 
was  attracted  by  a  curious  chirruping  noise.  On  peeping  down 
I  saw  a  pretty  and  an  interesting  sight,  for  among  the  reeds  and 
rushes  a  clutch  of  tiny  moor-hens  were  swimming  to  and  fro, 
little  balls  of  black  fluff  with  beaks  red  as  the  best  sealing  wax. 
Of  the  old  birds  I  could  see  nothing ;  doubtless  at  my  approach 
they  had  run  from  the  pond  and  hidden  in  the  hay,  leaving  the 
young  ones  to  take  their  chance. 

It  is  curious  that  these  waterfowl  should  build  thus  in  a  little 
lane-side  pond,  when  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  them  flows  the 
river  Waveney.  Perhaps  they  prefer  ponds  to  rivers  because  the 
former  do  not  overflow  the  banks  and  perhaps  flood  their  nests. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  water  out  on  the  common  this  even- 
ing, more  than  there  was  yesterday.  With  us  the  second  day 
of  the  floods  is  generally  worse  than  the  first,  as  the  water 
collected  from  thousands  of  ditches  and  drain-pipes  along  the 
whole  length  of  the  valley  of  the  Waveney  takes  some  time  to 
come  down. 

June  14. — Yesterday  was  very  cold,  and  to-day  is  still  colder. 
The  stove  has  been  re-lighted  to  warm  the  house,  and  all  are 
wrapped  up  in  their  thickest  winter  clothes.  There  is  no  gleam 
of  sun,  but  day  by  day  the  north-easterly  gale  rages  on  us  beneath 
an  ashen  sky.  I  wish  that  we  all  lived  in  Cyprus,  that  island  of 
the  blest.  Of  all  the  many  places  I  have  visited  in  the  world,  there 
are  but  two  to  which  I  wish  to  return — Iceland  and  Cyprus. 
Perhaps,  however,  I  should  add  Egypt  to  the  list. 

For  the  last  few  days  I  have  noticed  that  all  the  swallows,  martins, 


234  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

and  sand-martins  are  vanished  away.  This  morning  I  found 
out  where  they  go  to,  for  in  front  'of  the  Lodge,  under  the  shelter 
of  the  Vineyard  Hills,  they  were  skimming  to  and  fro  by  scores, 
waiting  doubtless  until  the  nor'-easter  has  blown  itself  out.  Those 
of  them  which  are  breeding  about  this  house  put  in  an  occasional 
appearance  to  see  that  their  nests  are  safe,  sit  for  a  little  while 
shivering  on  the  railings,  and  then  fly  off  again.  Not  the  oldest 
man  upon  the  place  can  recollect  so  cold  a  June,  and  certainly 
there  has  been  nothing  so  consistently  bitter  and  sunless  within 
my  own  experience. 

To-day  we  are  cutting  out  beet  on  All  Hallows  field,  No.  29, 
and  Home  Farm  field,  No.  22.  The  steam-saw  also  is  still  going 
merrily,  while  Robson,  the  jobbing  carpenter,  is  '  making  a  pre- 
paration '  to  begin  the  shed  over  the  unenclosed  portion  of  the 
cow-yard.  It  seems  a  tremendous  task  for  one  man  to  undertake 
by  himself,  but  once  the  materials  are  delivered  for  him,  by  the 
help  of  a  rope  and  pulley  and  some  stout  iron  bolts,  with  time  he 
will  do  it  all,  and  in  such  a  fashion  that,  unless  someone  pulls  it 
down,  his  work  will  be  standing  sLity  years  hence. 

June  15, — The  north-easterly  gale  is  still  blowing  over  a 
shivering  world.  As  the  ploughman  Peachey  says,  it  is  more  like 
after  Michaelmas 'than  four  months  before  it,  except  that  we  rarely 
get  it  so  cold  between  Michaelmas  and  Christmas  as  it  is  to-day. 
The  actual  temperature,  however,  does  not  go  below  forty-five  in 
the  daytime.  I  fear  that  all  ho^es  of  a  good  corn  harvest  must 
be  abandoned,  as  the  grain  will  not  set  well  in  such  weather. 
According  to  present  appearances,  also,  the  roots  will  be  small  and 
backward. 

To-day  the  sheep  were  dipped  as  a  preventive  of  fly,  for  the 
bluebottle,  to  which  most  smells  seem  but  as  perfume,  cannot  bear 
the  odour  of  the  poisonous  stuff  wherein  their  fleeces  are  soaked. 
The  process  is  rather  curious  :  first  the  flock,  as  is  usual  on  these 
great  domestic  occasions,  are  penned  in  the  barn.  Here  two  men 
seize  the  sheep  one  by  one  and  plunge  them  legs  upwards  into  a 


JUNE  235 

V-shaped  tub  half  full  of  unpleasant-looking  fluid.  Now,  indeed, 
the  long-suffering  sheep  thinks  that  the  end  of  all  things  is  at 
hand.  Its  legs  kick  convulsively,  its  anxious  ugly  head  projects 
from  the  yellow  flood,  while  in  the  subdued  light  of  the  barn  its 
eyes  turn  green  with  fright  as  it  utters  a  succession  of  gurgling 
groans  and  baas.  Next,  if  it  be  a  ewe,  so  soon  as  the  liquid  has 
got  a  good  bite  of  the  skin  she  is  lifted  from  the  tub  and  set  free, 
the  roller  on  the  edge  of  it  preventing  her  from  hurting  herself, 
however  fiercely  she  may  struggle.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a 
lamb  which  has  longer  wool,  it  is  laid  upon  the  strainer,  which, 
furnished  with  bars,  is  made  of  the  cover  of  the  bath  and  sup- 
ported by  a  rest,  where  all  superfluous  fluid  is  squeezed  from  its 
fleece  to  run  back  into  the  tub.  Then  it  is  hoisted  over  the  roller 
and  departs  into  the  field,  looking  exactly  as  though  it  had  de- 
veloped a  violent  attack  of  jaundice. 

This  afternoon,  as  I  was  working  in  my  study,  I  noticed  how 
great  is  the  number  of  birds  that  haunt  the  lawn  this  year,  per- 
haps because  I  have  succeeded  in  persuading  the  domestic  powers 
to  dispense  with  some  of  their  numerous  retinue  of  cats.  On  the 
middle  of  the  lawn  is  an  old  thrush  busily  engaged  in  feeding  an 
apoplectic-looking  member  of  its  family,  which  hops  after  it  in  a 
most  comical  fashion,  and  takes  down  worms  quite  regardless  of 
size  or  number.  Indeed,  the  mother  thrush  is  kept  at  it  without 
pause.  Again  and  again  she  sets  her  heels  into  the  ground  and 
pulls  at  a  great  worm,  which  slowly  stretches  out  like  an  india- 
rubber  band  until  it  breaks  in  two  or  comes  up  bodily.  But  the 
old  bird  is  never  allowed  to  refresh  itself  with  a  delicate  morsel,  for 
its  offspring  comes  behind  and  pecks  at  it  until,  with  an  angry  little 
sound,  it  thrusts  the  juicy  captive  down  its  insatiable  maw.  These 
proceedings  appear  greatly  to  incite  the  indignation  of  the  porch 
swallows,  who  have  come  up  from  below  the  hill  to  look  after  their 
nest.  Perhaps,  as  they  live  on  insects  themselves,  they  do  not  like 
people  who  eat  worms.  At  any  rate,  with  loud  twitterings  they 
swoop  again  and  again  at  the  pair,  missing  their  heads  each  time 
by  not  more  than  the  eighth  of  an  inch.     These  demonstrations, 


236  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

however,  do  not  in  the  least  disturb  the  old  thrush,  which  goes  on 
worming  without  even  taking  the  trouble  to  look  up. 

Presently  a  squirrel  arrives,  and  with  an  increased  energy 
the  swallows  transfer  their  attentions  to  him,  possibly  under  the 
impression  that  he  is  a  cat  or  a  weasel.  The  squirrel,  not  having 
the  nerve  of  the  thrush,  bolts  as  hard  as  he  can  go,  and  takes 
refuge  in  a  yew  fence,  where  he  vanishes.  Next,  a  bullfinch 
comes  and,  perching  on  the  stalk  of  a  flowering  weed  that  bends 
beneath  his  weight,  picks  off  the  buds  one  by  one  with  the  most 
astonishing  rapidity,  and,  to  all  appearance,  for  sheer  mischief. 
It  is  easy  to  see  why  gardeners  dislike  these  birds  so  much. 
After  the  bullfinch  appear  a  pair  of  water-wagtails,  that  for 
many  years  have  nested  near  the  garden  door,  and  progress  across 
tKe  lawn  with  quick  little  runs,  of  which  the  objective  is,  I  presume, 
a  fly.  On  the  gravel  path  two  sparrows  are  fighting  violently, 
and  in  the  beech  tree  beyond  a  wood-pigeon  coos  till  its  mate 
comes  sailing  majestically  through  the  air  to  settle  at  its  side.  But 
the  list  is  almost  endless,  so  here  I  will  close  the  count. 

To-day  I  heard  that  the  clergyman  in  a  parish  where  I  have 
property  has  become  involved  in  a  controversy  over  the  body  of 
a  parishioner.  The  case,  as  reported  in  the  paper,  is  that  my 
friend  the  clergyman  refused  to  read  the  Burial  Service  over  the 
deceased  parishioner,  on  the  ground  that  his  conduct  while  in  life 
had  been  notoriously  immoral.  Ultimately,  I  believe,  this  office 
was^  performed  by  a  Nonconformist  minister.  I  have  no  doubt, 
from  what  I  know  of  the  able  and  earnest  clergyman  in  question, 
that  according  to  the  facts  he  was  right  in  his  decision.  Yet  the 
precedent  seems  dangerous.  Supposing,  however,  that  I  am 
wrong  on  this  point,  ought  not  the  deceased  to  have  a  fair  trial  ? 
The  ancient  Egyptians,  a  people  whose  wisdom  had  mellowed 
through  thousands  of  years  of  experience,  formed  an  especially  con- 
stituted court  to  try  such  cases.  The  dead  man  had  his  advocate, 
and  Set,  or  the  Devil,  had  his  advocate,  and,  until  the  ordeal 
became  a  mere  religious  form,  the  thing  was  thrashed  out  before 
a  competent  jury.     But  here  there  are  no  advocates  and  no  jury ; 


JUNE  237 

the  clergyman  apparently  is  both  accuser  and  judge ;  for,  even  if 
he  refers  to  his  bishop,  the  statement  of  the  case  must  necessarily 
be  ex  parte.  Yet  the  verdict  which  he  is  empowered  to  give 
carries  a  very  severe  penalty — nothing  less,  indeed,  than  that  a 
man's  body  should  be  refused  Christian  burial.  Were  that  man 
still  living,  if  such  a  verdict  chanced  to  be  given  against  him 
unjustly,  one  can  imagine  no  injury  that  would  entitle  him  to 
heavier  damages.  Yet  this  formidable  power — for  it  is  formidable, 
both  in  its  spiritual  aspects  and  in  the  effect  that  may  be  produced 
upon  the  minds  and  interests  of  survivors,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
memory  and  repute  of  the  deceased — is  left  in  the  hands  of  an 
individual,  who  might  conceivably — though  perhaps  this  rarely 
happens — be  so  prejudiced  as  to  be  incapable  of  forming  a  just 
and  liberal  opinion. 

A  century  or  so  ago  our  forefathers  condemned  suicides  to  be 
buried  at  four  cross-roads  with  a  stake  driven  through  their 
breasts,  yet  there  must  have  been  cases  where  such  treatment  was 
hard  upon  suicides.  We  have  abandoned  that  practice,  but 
apparently  a  single  clergyman  can  still  pass  what — leaving  out  the 
stake  and  the  cross-roads — is  a  similar  sentence  of  excommunica- 
tion from  the  company  of  the  Christian  dead. 

Needless  to  say,  I  am  not  venturing  to  criticise  the  conduct 
of  ministers  who  have  the  assurance  of  their  convictions  and  put 
them  into  practice,  for  if  a  matter  is  left  to  their  decision  they 
must  decide.  Most  people,  however,  would  rather  be  rid  of  such 
a  responsibility.  Once  I  knew  a  clergyman  who  boldly  excommu- 
nicated a  parishioner,  of  whose  conduct  he  disapproved,  with  bell, 
book,  and  candle,  quite  in  the  high  old  fashion.  I  admired  his 
courage  very  much,  but  others,  including  his  bishop,  took  a 
different  view.  Yet  the  case  of  the  living  man  is  better  than 
that  of  the  dead,  for  the  one  can  bring  an  action  and  the  other 
cannot. 

It  is  pointed  out  in  the  newspaper  that  on  January  21  the 
minimum  temperature  was  50-8°,  and  on  June  14,  48*4°.  What 
a  commentary  upon  our  climate. 


238  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

June  17. — Yesterday,  which  was  as  cold  as  usual,  we  finished 
the  steam-sawing.  All  the  pile  of  rough  timbers  has  been  trans- 
formed into  heaps  of  sawn  stuff  of  every  size  and  character.  I 
think  that  there  will  be  enough  material  for  the  framework  of  all 
the  three  sheds,  in  addition  to  the  ash,  oak  posts,  planks,  rails, 
some  gate  stuff  and  waste  for  winter  firing. 

To-day  the  wind  has  veered  to  the  sou'-west,  and  we  have 
actually  seen  the  sun,  though  not  for  long.  The  cutting  of  the 
layer  on  All  Hallows  field.  No.  37,  has  begun.  It  is  a  thick  lush 
crop,  which  looks  as  if  it  would  weigh  at  least  a  ton  and  a  quarter 
per  acre  on  the  stack,  and  perhaps  more,  but  I  should  not  think 
that  the  quality  can  be  very  good,  owing  to  the  lack  of  sunshine. 
The  tall  ripe  grasses,  over  which  the  swallows  skim,  looked  very 
beautiful  rippling  in  the  rare  sunlight.  It  is  the  fashion  to  say 
that  machinery  is  ugly,  but  that  is  not  my  own  opinion.  Cer- 
tainly, while  I  stood  in  the  hayfield  and  watched  the  cutter  coming 
up  the  slope  of  the  hill  towards  me,  the  two  great  horses  putting 
out  their  strength  as  they  breasted  the  rise,  and  the  driver  seated 
behind  them  alert,  watchful,  his  hand  on  the  lever  and  his  eyes 
upon  the  knives,  I  did  not  think  the  sight  ugly.  Indeed,  the 
picture  struck  me  as  fine ;  although,  perhaps,  it  owed  something 
to  its  frame,  for  here,  without  being  striking,  the  view  has  great 
charm.  Beyond  the  crest  of  the  rise  the  land  slopes  down  gently 
to  the  meadow  where  the  streamlet  runs.  Then  it  rises  again, 
and  the  eye,  travelling  up  the  wide  fields,  rests  upon  the  dark 
mass  of  Tindale  Wood,  and  to  the  right  is  caught  by  the  naked 
rafters  of  a  ruined  barn. 

On  my  way  back  I  stopped  by  the  All  Hallows  pond  to  watch 
the  familiar  scene  of  a  hen  half  crazy  with  the  spectacle  of  the 
ducklings  she  had  reared  taking  to  the  water.  This  caused  me 
to  reflect  that  it  must  be  the  fact  of  incubation  which  in  these 
birds  gives  rise  to  the  feeling  of  maternal  love.  Otherwise,  why 
should  a  hen  be  so  fond  ofjittle  ducks  whose  aspect,  as  they  arise 
out  of  the  egg,  must  shock  and  terrify  her,  aware  as  she  is  that  at 
no  period  of  her  own  career  did  she  ever  look  like  that  ?     Yet 


JUNE  239 

she  knows  them  all  by  sight  or  by  smell,  and  looks  after  them  to 
the  best  of  her  ability,  although,  with  the  selfishness  of  the  young, 
they  decline  to  abandon  a  single  habit  in  deference  to  her  preju- 
dices. I  have  heard  a  story  of  an  unfortunate  hen — I  will 
not  vouch  for  the  truth  of  it — under  whom  some  mischievous 
person  placed  a  fine  variety  of  eggs — a  duck  or  two,  some  guinea- 
fowls,  chickens,  pheasants,  and  partridges.  In  due  course  they 
hatched  out,  but  at  the  end  of  a  week  that  hen  was  found  dead, 
presumably  of  worry  and  nerve  exhaustion. 

On  the  road  I  met  a  pedlar,  who  produced  for  my  inspection 
some  nice  Egyptian  or  Cyprian  tear-bottles,  one  or  two  of  them 
very  iridescent.  Also  he  had  a  finely  proportioned  small  silver 
church  paten  stamped  with  a  fleur-de-lis  only,  for  it  was  made 
before  hall-marks  came  in;  I  think  that  the  date  of  it  was  1581. 
From  this  pedlar  I  have  from  time  to  time  purchased  some  of  the 
best  things  in  my  small  collection,  notably  a  little  bronze,  which 
I  believe  to  be  one  of  the  very  few  extant  portraits  of  the  great 
Egyptian  queen,  Taia.  (I  possess  her  golden  ring,  taken  from  her 
corpse.)  On  this  bronze  the  crown  is  made  of  a  perfect  circle 
of  riraei. 

This  afternoon,  whilst  walking  on  the  Bath  Hills,  I  noticed 
two  pairs  of  swifts  wheeling  far  above  me,  on  wings  so  motionless 
that  they  might  have  been  not  living  birds,  but  crescents  of  bright 
jet  travelling  the  sky.  I  have  often  seen  them  here  in  bygone 
years,  but  have  never  yet  been  able  to  discover  where  they  build. 
Generally,  though  not  here,  these  birds  rear  their  young  in  church 
towers.  I  suppose  that  these  particular  pairs  nest  at  a  distance,  but 
visit  this  spot  to  hav/k  for  the  insects  that  haunt  the  slope.  After  all, 
a  ten  or  twenty  mile  journey  home  would  not  be  much  to  a  swift. 

The  common  beneath  me  looked  unusually  rich  and  lovely  in 
the  afternoon  lights  to-day,  as  they  glowed  upon  the  gorse,  which 
is  just  bursting  into  yellow  bloom,  and  on  the  red  roofs  of 
Bungay  town  beyond. 

As  I  studied  the  scene,  with  the  winding  river  and  the  rich 
pasture  land  dotted  by  scores  of  cattle  and  horses,  it  reminded 


240  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

me  much  of  some  that  I  have  seen  in  Holland ;  indeed,  I  think 
that  in  it  an  old  Dutch  artist  would  have  found  many  oppor- 
tunities. 

June  19. — Yesterday  the  morning  was  fine  and  warm,  but  in 
the  afternoon  rain  fell.  We  finished  cutting  the  layer  on  All 
Hallows,  No.  37,  and  began  the  trefoil  on  Baker's,  No.  45.  Also 
we  drilled  white  turnips  upon  the  strip  left  for  them  among  the 
beet  and  swedes  on  Baker's,  No.  44.  Peachey  has  been  at  work 
all  day  with  three  horses,  '  cultivating '  a  portion  of  the  land  on 
No.  24,  where  the  mixed  food  has  been  fed  off  by  the  sheep,  in 
order  to  drag  out  the  twitch  grass  with  which  it  has  become 
infested.  The  implement  employed  is  wooden-framed,  and  set 
with  a  number  of  curved  prongs  of  steel  that  tear  up  the  soil  as 
they  pass  through  it,  drawing  the  grass  and  rubbish  to  the  surface. 
To-day,  to  make  the  teeth  sink  deeper,  it  was  weighted  with  an 
iron  harrow  laid  atop.  The  land  has  been  gone  over  three 
times,  first  transversely,  then  longitudinally,  and  again  trans- 
versely, so  I  think  that  most  of  the  grass  must  have  been 
destroyed.  As  soon  as  it  is  a  little  dry  it  will  be  raked  into 
heaps  and  burnt. 

This  afternoon,  after  attending  church  at  Bedingham,  Mr. 
Morgan,  the  vicar,  kindly  fetched  the  registers,  and  we  looked 
through  them.  They  begin  in  1555,  the  year,  I  believe,  of  the 
Marian  persecutions,  and  are  kept  in  the  usual  form,  baptisms, 
marriages  and  burials  being  entered  in  one  book.  I  imagine  that 
in  those  early  days  the  usual  practice  was  for  the  clergyman  to 
make  rough  notes  of  these  events  in  a  commonplace  book, 
which  at  any  convenient  time  were  entered  up  into  the  register 
by  a  travelling  clerk,  who  wrote  what  was  considered  a  good 
hand,  and  did  such  work  for  a  fee — at  least  in  several  of  the 
registers  hereabouts  I  have  observed  what  seems  to  be  the 
same  handwriting  appearing  contemporaneously.  Most  students 
of  registers  will  have  noticed  that  the  entries  of  burials  in  early 
days   seem   to   be  much  more  numerous  than  those  either  of 


JUNE  241 

baptisms  or  marriages.  Thus  at  Bedingham  in  the  year  1558 
it  would  appear  that  there  was  but  one  baptism,  as  against  twelve 
burials — a  comparative  rate  which  must  soon  have  extinguished 
the  population.  I  suppose  that  the  reason  of  this  discrepancy  is 
that  whereas  everybody  in  due  course  came  to  be  buried,  there 
being  no  other  reasonable  and  decent  way  of  disposing  of  a 
corpse,  everybody  did  not  come  either  to  be  baptised  or  married. 
Here  are  a  few  extracts  taken  from  these  registers ;  quaint 
enough  some  of  them.  It  will  be  observed  that  all  of  these  are 
entries  made  during  the  incumbency  of  a  single  clergyman, 
Mr.  Joseph  Parsons,  M.A.,  who  was  instituted  in  1725. 

Baptisms 

'1737.  John,  son  of  George  Smyth,  Esq  :  of  Topcroft  Hall, 
the  inhabitants  thereof  paying  a  pension  annually  of  thirteen  and 
tourpence  to  the  vicar  by  ancient  custom. 

'1739,  Elizabeth,  baseborn  daughter  of  Mary  Fulcher,  by 
oath  laid  to  Will  Smith  Jun'. 

'  1740.  Cornelius,  base  son  of  Anne  Hickleton,  Tho  :  Smith 
of  the  Priory  the  supposed  father. 

'  1 743.  George,  son,  base-born  of  Mary  Fulcher.  A  sad  one  ! ' 
(Here  it  is  evident  that  when  called  upon  to  make  this  second 
entry  anent  the  peccant  Mary  Fulcher,  the  feelings  of  the  worthy 
Mr.  Parsons  got  the  better  of  him.  His  note,  '  A  sad  one  ! ' 
refers,  I  imagine,  not  to  the  infant,  but  to  Mary's  character.) 

Marriages 

*  1 741.  James  Alderson,  Sarah  Tower  both  of  this  parish, 
single,     did  penance  for  ante-nuptial  co-habitation.'  ^ 

Burials 

'1742.  Susannah  Gowing,  single  woman  aged  79.  A 
miserable  object.  Thro'  a  fall  in  the  Fire  while  an  Infant,  but 
always  inoffensive,  and  always  pitied. 

'  This  is  not  the  word  used  in  the  register,  nor  is  the  penance  stated. 

R 


242  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

*  1742.  Richard  Faired  aged  78.  poor  but  Chearful-Hearted 
and  working  to  the  last,  extreme  moderate  in  his  desires  but 
grateful! :  now  admitted  we  Hope  to  a  Riches  and  Fulness,  not 
prepared  for  the  supine  and  lazy,  the  Ambitious  and  proud,  un- 
profitable Spenders,  or  penurious  Retainers  of  Superfluous  wealth.' 
(What  splendid  but  unimpeachable  phrases!  Have  we  not  all  of 
us  at  some  time  been  unprofitable  Spenders^  and  are  we  not  all 
acquainted  with  penurious  Retainers  of  Superfluous  wealth  ?) 

'  1747.  Charles  Brown,  a  quiet,  inoffensive,  regular,  and  well 
disposed  man,  taken  off  sudenly,  as  we  hope  to  peace,  from  evil 
which  threatened. 

'  1757-  John  Lamb  a  Travailer  drowned  on  The  Holmes.' 
(Query.  Does  '  travailer '  here  mean  a  worker  or  a  traveller  ?  And 
where  were  The  Holmes  ?) 

'1757.     Martha  Chipperfield,  reputed  wife  of  Eras.  Jerry. 

*  1759.  Robert  Plummer,  Schoolmaster,  a  Steady  Churchman 
and  inoffensive  neighbour.  Indulgent  to  his  Wife,  well-affected 
towards  his  Minister;  to  the  poor  tender  and  Compassionate: 
To  youth  a  painstaking  Instructor,  buried  with  regret.'  (Note. 
This  shows  that  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  even  such  a  small 
village  as  Bedingham  had  its  schoolmaster.) 

'  1765.  William  Stone,  eldest  son  of  the  late  William 
Stone  Esq,  a  hopeful  youth. 

'  John  Gunds  for  many  years  churchwarden,  A  friendly  and 
peaceable  Neighbour.' 

The  following  notes  appear  at  the  end  of  the  first  register- 
book:  *  There  was  collected  in  Beddingham  in  July  1659  towards 
the  recovery  of  the  Losse  at  Soulbay  in  suffering  they  sustained  by 
fire  the  summe  of  three  pounds  and  four  shillings  which  was  paid 
by  appointment  by  James  King,  churchwarden  to  Mr.  Walters, 
Chief  Constable.'  (Soulbay,  or  Solebay,  is  an  old  name  for 
Southwold  in  Suffolk,  a  town  which  gathered  importance  after 
Dunwich  was  destroyed  by  the  sea.  It  is  still  famous  for  its  soles. 
The  entry  shows  incidentally  the  terrible  risks  that  were  run  from 
fire  in  towns  built  largely  of  wood,  many  of  the  houses  of  which 


JUNE  243 

were  doubtless  thatched.  As  I  mentioned  in  my  first  chapter, 
Bungay  was  once  entirely  destroyed  by  such  a  fire,  and  from  the 
above  entry  it  seems  that  Southwold  suffered  in  the  same  way.) 

This  is  the  next  note  :  *  Collected  in  the  parish  of  Bedingham 
August  the  5th  1665  towards  the  relief  of  the  poor  of  Great 
Yarmouth  and  of  other  parts  of  ye  diocese  being  in  affliction  of  a 
grievous  plague,  ye  sume  of  one  pound  which  accordingly  was 
paid  unto  ye  bishop.' 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  amount  subscribed  is  the  smallest 
recorded  in  any  of  these  entries  of  collections.  Perhaps  the  reason 
of  this  was  that  Bedingham  itself  suffered  from  the  plague,  though, 
if  so,  no  record  of  it  remains.  Certainly  it  was  at  Bungay,  for  the 
pest-house  stood  upon  the  common,  and  it  is  said  that  the  dead 
were  buried  in  a  pit-hole  now  sacred  to  a  golf-green.  I  suppose 
that  this  entry  was  made  by  the  Rev.  William  Copping,  or  Coping. 
Probably  it  was  one  of  his  last,  since  a  monument  in  the  church 
informs  us  that  he  died  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-seven,  and 
^  hinc  migravit  ad  aureolam  coelestem  ^Junij  1666.'  Perhaps  the 
plague  took  him  off,  as  chanced  to  so  many  of  the  clergy  in 
Norfolk.  ( Vide  the  researches  of  Dr.  Jessopp  on  the  Black 
Death.) 

The  next  note,  made,  I  suppose,  by  John  Lathom,  since  Mr. 
Copping  had  been  four  months  dead,  is  :  '  Collected  in  ye  parish 
of  Bedingham  October  10  (being  ye  fast  for  ye  fire  of  London) 
towards  ye  relief  of  ye  poor  sufferers  by  ye  fire  ye  sum  of  two 
pounds  three  shillings  and  fourpence  paid  to  Mr.  Augustus  Cullien 
by  order  from  ye  Bishop.' 

It  would  appear  from  this  and  the  former  entry  that  the  collec- 
tions for  the  plague  and  the  fire  of  London  were  made  throughout 
the  diocese  by  the  request  or  command  of  the  bishop.  This  I 
hope  to  verify  by  searching  other  registers. 

The  next  note  which  I  shall  quote  is  as  follows — I  suppose  that  it 
was  made  by  John  Brown,  who  was  vicar  in  1680,  John  Lathom 
having  departed,  whether  to  another  parish  or  ad  aureolam  coeieste?n 
I  know  not :  '  Collected  in  ye  parish  of  Bedingham  January  ye  16*^ 


244  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

1680  towards  ye  redemption  of  ye  captives  in  Algiers  ye  sum  of 
two  pounds  seven  shillings.' 

Here  also  is  an  entry  which  shows  that  the  good  folk  of  Beding- 
ham  lived  long,  although  not  quite  so  long  as  those  in  the  neigh- 
bouring parish  of  Denton  :  '  In  Bedingham  there  have  been  but  2 
Vicars  in  the  space  of  94  years,  William  Cowper  collated  in  1680 
died  April  2.  1725  age  70  years  held  the  living  45  years.  Joseph 
Parsons  collated  in  1725  died  July  1774  held  the  living  49  years.' 

In  the  register-book  of  Denton,  in  Norfolk,  where  I  have  a 
small  farm,  Mr.  Rogerson,  rector  of  the  parish,  remarked  that 
his  predecessor  was  instituted  into  the  living  in  1595,  and  died  in 
1659.  Mr.  Rogerson  was  instituted  in  1659,  and  died  in  1715  : 
so  that  his  predecessor  was  sixty-four  years  rector,  and  he  himself 
fifty-six  years  ;  two  only  in  the  space  of  120  years  ! 

This  is  a  remarkable  record,  but  I  can  almost  match  it  by  one 
that  came  within  my  own  experience.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Edwards,  the 
rector  of  Ashill,  near  Bradenham,  who  was  a  friend  of  my  family 
for  some  generations,  filled  that  cure,  I  think,  for  about  seventy- 
five  years.  If  I  remember  right,  he  told  me  that  he  had  baptised, 
married  and  buried,  nearly  three  generations  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Ashill.  He  was,  I  believe,  within  a  month  or  two  of  a  hundred 
years  of  age  when  he  died,  about  fifteen  years  ago,  from  a  chill 
contracted  while  recording  his  vote  at  a  contested  election. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  the  Bedingham  registers  I  must 
copy  a  last  extract  from  them,  a  curious  one  enough  to  find  in  such 
a  place.  Here  it  is  :  '  John  Francis,  the  Vicar  of  this  parish 
underwent  October  25th:  1780  an  operation  for  the  stone,  when 
two,  weighing  an  ounce  and  a  half,  were  extracted  by  that  very 
eminent  surgeon,  Mr.  William  Donne  of  Norwich,  for  which  Mr. 
Francis  paid  him  seventy  ^  pounds.  Mr.  Francis  is  now  perfectly 
recovered,  for  which  great  mercy  he  daily  returns  his  most  sincere 
and  unfeigned  thanks  to  the  Divine  Author  of  his  Being,  the 
Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost. 

*  It  is  possible  that  this  word  is  '  twenty, '  though  it  appears  to  read  '  seventy. ' 
Even  in  the  former  event  the  sum  is  large  for  the  time. 


JUNE  245 

*His  affliction  under  this  severe  trial  was  greatly  lessened 
through  the  affectionate  tenderness  and  care  of  Elizabeth  his  well 
beloved  wife,  the  generous  kindeness  which  was  shown  him  by  his 
dear  relations  [here  follows  a  long  list  of  the  names  of  relations  and 
friends]  to  each  of  whom  he  esteems  himself  most  highly  indebted 
and  begs  them  to  accept  his  very  sincere  acknowledgments.' 
Aug.  7,  1781. 

The  largeness  of  the  fee  paid,  which  at  the  present  value  of 
money  would  represent  a  considerable  sum,  shows  how  serious 
was  the  operation  which  Mr.  Francis  underwent.  That  it  could 
be  carried  out  at  all  without  the  aid  of  anaesthetics  seems  little 
short  of  a  marvel ;  but  he  was  not  wrong  when  he  said  that  his 
recovery  was  complete,  as  I  find  that  he  did  not  die  till  the  year 
1794.  Doubtless  the  list  of  friends,  to  whom  he  returns  thanks, 
between  them  contributed  the  money  for  the  surgeon's  fee.  Under 
his  name  in  the  register-book  one  of  his  successors  has  written, 
'  He  was  a  pious,  good  and  learned  man.'  Few  could  wish  for  a 
better  epitaph,  even  although  it  should  chance  to  be  seen  by  living 
eyes  but  once  or  twice  in  a  century. 

This  evening  I  received  a  pleasing  note  from  the  manager  of  a 
very  large  estate  in  our  neighbourhood.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  a 
terrier  dog  with  my  name  on  the  collar  had  been  found  in  company 
with  another  terrier  dog,  owner  unknown,  doing  its  wicked  best 
to  tear  the  throat  out  of  a  ewe  in  the  park.  The  wretched  little 
animal,  which  up  to  the  present  had  never  killed  anything  larger 
than  a  harmless  hen  or  a  domesticated  duck,  has  been  lost  for  two 
days — now  1  know  why.  To-morrow  he  goes  to  town  in  charge 
of  a  friend,  who,  greatly  daring,  has  offered  to  take  him.  If  Dan 
tries  to  kill  more  sheep  it  shall  be  in  St.  James's  and  not  in  Flixton 
Park. 

June  22. — On  returning  from  London  to-day  I  find  that  the 
clover-hay  is  still  lying  out  on  All  Hallows  field.  No.  37.  Just  as 
preparations  were  being  made  to  cart  this  morning  down  came  the 
usual  thunder-shower,  so  all  the  men  had  to  go  hoeing  in  Baker's 


246  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

root.  The  beet  seem  to  have  improved  much  owing  to  the  warmer 
temperature  of  the  last  few  days,  but  I  think  that  the  weather  is 
still  far  from  settled. 

To-night  there  was  a  very  beautiful  evening  sky,  broken  here 
and  there  by  heavy  heaps  of  cloud  floating  in  a  depth  of  the 
intensest  blue.  One  of  these  resembled  a  huge  mountain  in  size 
and  shape,  and  on  that  side  of  it  where  struck  the  light  of  the 
sinking  sun,  thrown  upwards  in  fan-like  rays  from  behind  another 
plumed  and  hearse-like  bank  of  clouds,  the  appearance  was  as 
though  this  aerial  peak  were  piled  with  snowdrifts  in  enormous 
masses,  hanging  high  above  each  other  like  avalanches  about  to 
fall,  and  fringed,  all  of  them,  with  many  coloured  fires.  The  air 
also  was  unusually  quiet,  so  quiet  that  to  the  listener  standing  on  the 
crest  of  the  Vineyard  Hills  every  sound  from  Bungay,  such  as 
those  of  the  tolling  bells,  or  of  baying  dogs,  and  even  the  song  of 
quite  distant  birds,  floated  to  his  ear  with  extraordinary  distinct- 
ness, while  far  away  towards  the  horizon  the  thunder  boomed  from 
time  to  time  like  the  deep  notes  of  a  Dead  March  swelling  from 
some  vast  organ  in  the  heavens  to  celebrate  a  demon's  obsequies. 

June  23. — To-day  was  bench-day,  but  there  was  no  business 
except  that  of  afliliation  orders.  In  one  of  the  cases  the  man, 
who  had  brought  a  young  girl,  a  servant  in  his  parents'  house,  into 
trouble,  kept  her  from  informing  her  mother  of  the  facts  by 
threatening — so  she  swore,  and  it  was  not  contradicted — that  if 
she  did  he  '  would  cut  her  throat.'  After  this  sequel  I  wonder 
with  what  feelings  that  couple  regard  each  other  to-day.  Some 
experience  as  a  barrister  in  the  Probate  Court,  and  more  of  the 
cases  which  come  before  magistrates,  makes  me  wonder  at  the 
hardihood  of  those  who  suggest  that  '  naturalism '  of  the  French 
school  should  be  attempted  in  English  fiction.  If  the  naturalism 
is  to  be  real — and  half  the  truth  is  but  of  little  value — such 
matters  as  I  have  instanced,  together  with  the  details  of  mental 
disease  and  of  moral  obliquities,  must  be  reported  faithfully. 
Nature  in  these  aspects  should  be  set  out  as  she  is.     This,  at  any 


JUNE  247 

rate  among  English-speaking  peoples,  is,  I  suppose,  impossible  at 
present ;  indeed,  I  think  that  I  could  furnish  a  few  rural  incidents, 
which  some  might  be  inclined  to  reject  as  beyond  belief,  that 
would  cause  even  the  intrepid  author  of  *  La  Terre '  to  hesitate. 
Yet  they  have  been  proved  in  court  by  satisfactory  evidence, 
including  that  of  the  freely  offered  testimony  of  the  individuals 
concerned. 

Here  is  a  terrible  example  of  what  may  happen  to  people  for 
want  of  a  kicking-strap.  Yesterday  the  ostler  of  the  King's  Head 
Hotel,  a  very  worthy  and  careful  man,  attended  with  a  brougham 
to  drive  a  bride,  the  daughter  of  a  farmer,  to  church.  So  soon 
as  he  had  started  with  the  bride  and  her  parents,  the  horse,  an 
animal  hitherto  supposed  to  be  inoffensive,  commenced  kicking 
furiously.  So  high  did  it  kick  that  it  struck  the  driver  on  the 
forehead^  cutting  it  to  the  bone  and  knocking  him  nearly  sense- 
less. He  fell  from  the  box  and,  catching  his  leg  between  the 
wheel  and  the  body  of  the  brougham,  broke  it  in  two  places. 
Even  then,  however,  he  did  not  leave  go  of  the  reins,  but  clung 
to  them  so  tenaciously  that  the  horse  was  pulled  over  on  to 
its  side,  the  bride  and  her  parents  escaping  unhurt,  while  the 
driver  was  removed  to  Ditchingham  Hospital.  It  is  hoped 
that  he  will  recover ;  but  at  his  age  the  case  is  serious.  The 
mare  is  supposed  to  have  been  stung  by  a  wasp  or  hornet ;  cer- 
tainly, when  I  examined  her  to-day,  I  saw  a  lump  upon  her 
stomach  that  seemed  to  have  been  caused  by  a  sting.  Moral  : 
Always  use  a  kicking-strap. 

Jime  25. — Yesterday  was  wretched,  cold  and  dull,  with  occa- 
sional rain-storms  and  a  strong  sou'-west  wind.  To-day  is  even 
worse.  In  the  morning  a  cloudy  sky  and  wind,  and  in  the  after- 
noon came  violent  rains  diversified  by  thunder  and  lightning. 
Before  dinner-time  the  men  were  working  in  the  hay  on  Baker's  \ 
but  after  it  had  all  been  aired  by  the  tosser,  and  just  as  they  were 
beginning  to  get  it  on  to  the  cock,  down  fell  the  rain  again,  so  that 
the  only  progress  which  this  hay  has  made  is  towards  decomposi- 


24S  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

tion.  After  dinner  the  men  went  to  work  cutting  out  the  beet  on 
Baker's,  No.  44,  a  slow  job  indeed  owing  to  the  furious  growth  of 
weeds,  which,  even  when  hoed  out,  do  not  die  in  such  weather  as 
this,  but  very  frequently  root  again  in  the  furrows. 

This  morning  I  walked  through  some  of  the  land  that  I  let  in 
allotments,  as  I  wished  to  see  what  crops  are  most  grown  by  the 
holders.  I  found  that  potatoes  are  chiefly  in  favour,  while  next 
to  them  comes  beet.  Wherever  the  plant  of  these  has  failed  for 
a  yard  or  so,  or  even  less,  the  husbandmen  sow  a  pinch  of  swede 
seed,  which  in  due  course  they  thin  out  to  one  or  two  roots  as 
may  be  required.  But  little  market-garden  stuff  is  grown,  as 
for  this  there  is  practically  no  market.  So  I  have  learned  by 
experience,  as  the  man  in  charge  of  the  Lodge  garden,  which  is 
one  of  the  best  in  this  neighbourhood,  has  been  instructed  to  sell 
the  produce  that  is  not  wanted.  He  tells  me  that  with  the 
exception  of  potatoes,  which  come  on  early  in  this  sheltered  spot, 
he  can  get  no  price  for  anything,  asparagus  not  excepted.  Clearly 
it  would  be  cheaper  to  buy  vegetables  than  to  keep  up  a  garden. 

I  went  also  to  look  at  the  seven  young  purchased  home-breds, 
and  two  of  my  own  in-calf  red-poll  heifers  that  are  running  on  the 
dry  marsh.  No.  18.  They  are  doing  well,  all  of  them,  and  the 
heifers,  which  are  the  progeny  of  two  of  my  best  cows,  seem 
really  beautiful  animals.  It  is  curious  to  notice  the  difference 
between  these  high-bred  things  and  the  seven  steers.  They  also 
are  red  and  polled ;  indeed  I  think  that  a  bull  from  my  herd  was 
their  father  or  grandfather,  for  I  sold  him  as  a  young  thing  to 
the  farmer  who  bred  them ;  but  their  coats  are  many  degrees 
lighter  in  colour,  their  limbs  less  fine,  and  generally  they  lack 
the  unmistakable  signs  of  breeding. 

There  is  a  thick  crop  of  grass  on  the  low  marsh.  No.  19,  but  it 
seems  to  be  very  wet  at  bottom,  owing,  doubtless,  to  the  recent 
floods.  Moreover,  the  docks  are  legion.  Ever  since  I  have  had  this 
marsh  in  hand  it  has  been  cut  annually  for  hay,  which  makes  it 
almost  impossible  for  men  to  go  on  it  in  suitable — by  which  must 
be  understood  wet — weather  to  draw  the  docks.     Also,  up  to  the 


JUNE  249 

present  we  never  seem  to  have  had  time  to  tackle  this  troublesome 
and  laborious  task.  Being  one  of  those  things  that  can  stand  over, 
it  is  always  left  to  stand  over.  At  the  best,  to  get  these  marshes  quite 
clear  of  docks  would,  I  fear,  be  practically  impossible,  for  as  fast  as 
they  are  destroyed  the  flood  water  deposits  a  fresh  supply  of  seed. 

June  28. — Sunday  the  26th  was  heavy  and  dull,  with  storms 
of  rain  in  the  morning,  while  yesterday  was  dreadfully  cold,  wet, 
and  tempestuous.  We  finished  cutting  out  the  beet  at  Baker's  as 
best  we  could,  although  it  was  difficult  for  the  men  to  stand  in  the 
slop,  and  the  showers  fell  so  heavily  that  from  time  to  time  they 
were  obliged  to  take  shelter.  The  rest  of  the  hands  were  engaged 
in  carting  the  manure  from  Baker's  and  heaping  it  on  the  layer, 
No.  45,  where  it  will  stand  till  the  time  comes  to  spread  it  in 
autumn.  It  looks  curious  to  see  a  compost  heap  among  the 
mown  hay,  but  we  are  anxious  to  empty  the  yard  preparatory  to  the 
building  of  the  shed  that  is  to  cover  it  in ;  also  there  is  little  else 
for  the  labourers  to  do  in  such  weather. 

To-day  is  again  very  cold  and  damp,  with  a  piercing  northerly 
wind,  but  in  the  afternoon  the  sun  shone  intermittently  till  about 
five  o'clock,  when  a  dense  blue  haze,  that  looked  like  the  approach 
of  thunder-rain,  spread  itself  over  earth  and  sky,  though  no  rain 
followed.  All  the  men  were  at  work  in  the  hay,  some  of  them 
engaged  in  turning  and  re-making  cocks  on  No.  37,  the  All 
Hallows  layer.  It  is  high  time  that  these  were  attended  to,  for  the 
bottoms  of  them  (which  now  become  the  tops),  that  have  been 
lying  all  this  while  upon  the  wet  ground,  are  beginning  literally 
to  stink.  Everybody  else  who  is  available  is  down  in  Baker's 
field.  No  45,  trying  to  get  the  layer,  which  for  a  long  while  has 
been  steadily  and  daily  drenched,  heaped  into  cocks.  This  is  the 
process  : 

First  the  men  go  down  the  lines  of  stuff"  with  forks,  turning 
them  and  throwing  to  one  side  any  particularly  wet  lumps  ;  then, 
after  the  hay  has  been  thus  treated  and  lain  a  while  to  dry,  comes 
the  horse-tosser,  breaking  up  the  wisps  and  airing  them.     Next 


250  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

follows  the  horse-rake,  which  rakes  it  into  lines,  the  man  seated  on 
the  machine  from  time  to  time  freeing  the  roll  of  hay  from  the 
hollow  of  the  rake  by  means  of  a  lever  at  his  side,  which  lifts  all 
the  prongs  simultaneously,  to  be  dropped  again  immediately  the 
line  is  cleared.  Lastly,  so  soon  as  it  is  dry  enough,  come  other 
men  with  forks  and  build  it  into  cocks  of  convenient  size. 

I  notice  that  the  wheat  is  beginning  to  come  into  bloom,  for 
on  what  will  be  the  sheath  of  each  grain  appear  odd  little  worm 
shaped  anthers  or  flowers,  or  what  in  our  ignorance  most  of  us 
believe  to  be  flowers.  Now  it  is  that  we  require  dry,  warm,  and 
quiet  weather,  for  unless  they  have  this  while  they  are  blooming 
the  wheats  do  not  often  cast  well.  After  our  recent  experiences, 
however,  to  hope  for  hot  and  sunny  days  seems  Utopian. 

June  29.^The  improbable  has  happened ;  to-day  is  fine  and 
warm — our  first  taste  of  summer.  We  have  been  carting  hay  from 
the  All  Hallows  layer  as  fast  as  we  can,  and  I  am  glad  to  say  that 
by  night  we  had  secured  most  of  the  cut.  In  the  All  Hallows  beet. 
No.  29,  Mrs.  Fairhead,  the  wife  of  one  of  my  horsemen,  is  engaged 
in  singling  the  mangolds,  that  is,  in  drawing  out  all  superfluous 
plants,  leaving  those  that'  are  to  go  on  for  crop  at  a  distance  of 
from  a  foot  to  eighteen  inches  apart.  I  think  that  this  is  about 
the  only  field  labour  in  which  women  are  now  employed  in  our 
parts,  unless  it  be  occasionally  as  pickers  of  stones.  I  believe  that 
fifty  years  ago  they  worked  much  more  upon  the  land,  and  this 
seems  to  be  borne  out  by  old  prints  of  agricultural  occupations. 
Thus,  in  Stephens's  *  Book  of  the  Farm  '  four  women  and  one  man 
are  represented  as  engaged  in  winnowing  corn,  the  man  acting 
as  driver,  and  the  women  as  riddlers  and  feeders.  Again,  in 
measuring  up  corn,  four  women  appear  as  against  one  man,  the 
man  doing  the  measuring  and  the  women  all  the  hard  work.  Also, 
in  a  representation  of  the  feeding  of  an  old-fashioned  thrashing 
machine,  women  workers  are  carrying  sheaves  from  the  mow  to 
the  mouth  of  the  machine. 

It  is  indeed  a  happy  thing  that  females  should  no  longer  be 


JUNE  251 

expected  to  undertake  this  heavy  labour,  for  which  they  are  un- 
suited  by  nature.  It  may  be  answered  that  women  work  in  the 
fields  in  other  parts  of  the  world ;  among  the  African  tribes,  for 
instance,  or,  to  come  nearer  home,  in  Normandy  and  Brittany.  I 
have  often  seen  the  Zulu  and  Basuto  women  at  their  toil,  which 
chiefly  consists  of  hoeing,  but  I  cannot  say  that  it  ever  impressed 
me  as  being  of  a  character  likely  to  do  them  harm.  Natives  are 
very  kind  to  their  female  folk  and  children,  and  for  the  most  part 
would  not  overwork  them.  The  horrors  that  we  read  of  in  the 
police-court  reports,  or,  let  us  say,  in  the  monthly  journal  of  the 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Children,  are  unknown, 
and  would,  indeed,  be  impossible,  among  those  sections  of  the  Bantu 
people  with  whom  I  have  mixed.  It  is  in  Christian  monogamous 
Britain  that  the  enlightened  and  educated  citizen  beats  the  last 
breath  out  of  his  wife  with  a  poker,  or  devises  fiendish  tortures 
for  the  bodies  of  his  little  children ;  the  poor  misguided  black 
man  shrinks  from  such  things. 

Perhaps  the  native  women  know  that  at  the  worst  they  have 
nothing  more  than  a  scolding  to  expect,  or  perhaps  the  pressure  of 
competition  has  not  yet  overtaken  them ;  at  any  rate,  they  always 
seemed  to  me  to  lighten  their  work  with  the  pleasures  of  gossip, 
and,  should  any  excuse  arise,  to  be  quite  ready  to  postpone  it  for  a 
while.  How  different  it  is  in  France,  where  one  may  see  women, 
prematurely  old  and  haggard,  struggling  up  some  hill  bearing 
on  their  backs  a  great  basket  filled  with  filthy  manure,  or  even 
playing  the  parts  of  animals  to  drag  an  implement  through  the 
soil.  Let  us  be  thankful  that  the  day  of  such  things  has  gone  by 
in  England. 

I  do  not  mean  to  imply,  however,  that  even  singling  beet  is 
child's  play,  for,  until  one  gets  used  to  it,  I  cannot  imagine  any 
more  back-breaking  task,  especially  in  a  hot  sun.  Still,  it  is  a 
means  of  earning  a  few  shillings,  of  which  some  of  the  older  school 
of  labourers'  wives,  whose  children  are  off  their  hands — for  the 
young  women  will  do  nothing — are  glad  to  avail  themselves; 
moreover,  it  is  healthful,  and  does  them  no  physical  harm. 


252  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

There  is  a  belief  here  that  mangold  will  not  bear,  or  at  the 
least  will  never  thrive  after,  transplanting.  To  satisfy  myself 
about  the  matter  I  collected  some  good  plants  that  had  been 
singled  out  by  Mrs.  Fairhead  without  injury  to  their  roots,  and 
with  my  spud  dibbled  them  into  a  blank  space  on  a  baulk  near 
the  gate  where  the  sparrows  have  destroyed  the  seedlings.  As  the 
land  is  wet  they  will  have  a  good  chance,  and  I  shall  be  able  to 
watch  what  happens  to  them. 

The  barley  is  now  in  full  ear,  but  it  is  still  rather  yellow  in 
colour. 

June  30. — To-day  has  been  dull  and  showery,  with  a  thick  close 
air  in  the  afternoon.  As  the  hay  cannot  be  stirred  in  such 
weather,  the  men  have  been  employed  hoeing  and  on  other  jobs 
about  the  farm.  Fairhead  has  been  at  work  cutting  the  new 
pasture.  No.  5,  which  was  laid  down  with  last  year's  crop  of  barley. 
Notwithstanding  the  drought  of  1897,  the  seeds  took  well,  making 
an  excellent  bottom,  which,  I  think,  has  been  somewhat  improved 
by  running  the  ewes  on  it  for  a  little  while  before  it  was  shut  down 
for  hay.  The  crop  of  grass  is  heavy,  with  a  great  deal  of  clover  in 
it,  but  much  '  laid  '  by  the  winds  and  rains.  This  makes  it  neces- 
sary to  exercise  great  care  in  the  cutting,  as  the  machine  can  only 
be  driven  against  the  grain  of  the  grass,  that  is,  in  the  contrary 
direction  to  which  it  is  laid  ;  otherwise,  it  merely  shears  off  the 
tops  of  the  stuff,  leaving  the  bulk  of  it  upon  the  ground.  To  cut  a 
field  thus  means  that  the  mower  cannot  be  worked  for  more  than 
half  the  round,  as  the  knife  must  be  lifted  and  put  out  of  gear  for 
all  that  part  of  the  journey  when  the  horses  are  walking  in  the 
direction  in  which  the  grass  is  laid.  Mowing  with  a  machine  is 
very  simple  work  if  the  crop  stands  stiff  and  upright,  for  then  it  is 
only  necessary  to  drive  the  horses  round  and  round  in  an  ever 
lessening  circle  until  all  is  down.  But  if,  as  is  frequently  the  case, 
the  grass  is  flattened  by  wind  and  rain,  it  requires  thought  and 
skill  to  cut  it  to  the  best  advantage. 

At  Bedingham  this  afternoon  I  found  the  wheats  in  full  bloom 


JUNE  253 

and  looking  very  tall  and  strong.  Of  the  barley,  that  on  No.  5 
seems  by  far  the  best ;  indeed,  by  comparison  with  it  the  other  two 
fields  are  yellow  and  stunted,  owing  to  the  long-continued  cold  and 
wet.  No.  5,  it  may  be  remembered,  was  the  piece  first  sown, 
having  been  drilled  on  February  i,  a  very  early  date  for  this  heavy 
land.  Hood  was  somewhat  opposed  to  this  rash  venture,  but  I 
was  in  favour  of  it,  as  all  the  best  authorities  seem  to  agree  that  if 
only  the  land  is  in  proper  order,  the  earlier  barley  is  got  in,  the 
better  the  chance  of  a  good  cast  and  sample.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind,  however,  that  this  field  has  received  a  dressing  of  crushed- 
bone  manure,  whereas  the  other  two  have  had  none,  to  which,  and 
not  to  the  early  drilling,  its  superior  appearance  may  be  due. 

The  kohl-rabi  and  the  beet  look  fairly  well,  though  both  these 
crops  require  dry  weather  and  sun.  The  swedes,  on  the  other 
hand,  which  share  the  newly  drained  field.  No.  18,  with  the  kohl- 
rabi, are  a  total  failure,  for  that  dreadful  insect,  'fly,'  has  taken  them 
off  so  completely  that  to-day  we  have  re-drilled  the  land  with  white 
turnip.  The  fly,  I  hear,  has  been  very  destructive  this  season  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Bedingham  ;  but,  oddly  enough,  at  Ditching- 
ham  we  have  been  little  troubled  with  it — indeed,  I  never  remember 
a  better  plant  of  swedes  upon  this  land.  I  hope  also  that  we  are 
fairly  safe  from  its  ravages,  as  the  belief  here  is  that  it  does  not  do 
much  harm  after  the  longest  day,  which  is  now  a  week  behind  us. 

The  red-poll  ox  that  I  think  of  showing  has  improved  con- 
siderably, especially  in  the  hind  quarters ;  but  the  iron-roofed  shed 
under  which  he  lives  is  hot,  notwithstanding  the  hedgeside  rubbish 
that  has  been  thrown  on  to  the  roof  to  break  the  force  of  the  sun, 
and  cattle  never  make  good  progress  when  they  are  heated  and 
teased  by  flies.  To  remedy  this  I  have  told  Moore  to  get  the 
carpenter  to  cut  out  two  or  three  feet  of  boarding  at  the  back  of 
the  shed,  and  to  make  a  sliding  shutter  to  close  over  the  opening 
when  needful, 

I  never  knew  a  place  so  fertile  in  wild  orchids  as  is  Websdill 
Wood.  To-day  I  found  quantities  of  a  new  variety.  Orchis  macu- 
lata,  which  have  appeared  now  that  the  Orchis  latifolia  has  done  its 


254  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

blooming.  These  macuiatas^  which  have  spotted  leaves,  although 
not  so  richly  coloured  as  the  latifolia^  are  still  very  beautiful  and 
attractive  flowers.  The  wood  seems  to  be  full  of  nesting  partridges. 
In  walking  about  it  to  pick  the  orchids  I  put  a  sitting  bird  off  her 
nest,  wherein  lay  thirteen  lovely  eggs.  Also  I  started  two  other 
couples  of  birds,  which,  by  their  curious  behaviour,  showed  me  that 
their  young  were  hidden  somewhere  in  the  grass.  They  flew  a  few 
yards,  then  settled  again,  and  ran  about  in  an  agitated  fashion, 
apparently  with  the  design  of  persuading  me  to  try  to  catch  them 
and  leave  the  neighbourhood  of  their  chicks,  of  which,  search  as  I 
would,  I  could  see  no  trace.  As  I  walked  away  I  heard  the  corn- 
crake calling  loudly  in  the  fields  about  the  wood,  and  looked  for 
it,  but  it  is  very  difficult  to  fix  the  exact  spot  from  which  the 
sound  comes  ;  indeed  I  have  never  yet  succeeded  in  the  attempt. 
The  corncrake  is  a  skilled  ventriloquist 


255 


JULY 

July  I. — Half  the  year  has  now  gone  by.  So  far  it  has  been  a 
somewhat  curious  season,  that  is  when  considered  from  the  farming 
point  of  view.  It  opened  with  mild  and  beautiful  weather,  followed 
by  a  cold  stormy  spring  and  a  wet  and  bitter  early  summer,  with 
a  general  prevalence  of  northerly  and  north-easterly  winds.  The 
strange  thing  is,  under  the  circumstances,  that  the  crops  should 
look  so  well  as  they  do.  Hay,  which  does  not  require  much 
warmth,  is  everywhere  a  heavy  *  cut,'  though  doubtless  more  sun 
would  have  improved  the  quality.  Wheats  are  tall  and  strong, 
but  it  remains  to  be  seen  how  they  will  fill.  Barleys  look  only 
moderate,  but  with  fine  warm  weather  may  yet  be  a  good  sample. 
Oats  seem  rather  short  in  the  straw,  and  I  doubt  whether  they 
will  give  anything  like  the  return  expected  from  this  crop  if  it  is 
to  pay,  namely,  almost  double  the  yield  per  acre  that  can  be 
credited  to  wheat.  Beet  are  about  a  three-quarter  plant,  but  back- 
ward ;  they  are  sun  lovers,  and  we  have  had  no  sun.  Swedes  are  a 
very  full  plant  in  this  village.  Beans  stand  tall  in  the  stalk,  but 
the  cold  seems  to  have  prevented  them  from  podding  satisfactorily, 
so  that  I  fear  they  will  give  but  a  light  yield  per  acre ;  indeed,  con- 
trary to  general  experience,  spring  beans  appear  to  be  better  than 
autumn  sown.  Pease,  on  the  other  hand,  look  well  with  us.  All 
nature  is  now  crying  aloud  for  warmth  and  sunshine,  and  upon 
the  character  of  the  weather  during  the  coming  month  to  a  very 
large  extent  will  depend  the  amount  and  quality  of  the  year's 
increase.  Wretched  as  it  has  been  so  far,  I  prefer  it  (speaking 
as  a  farmer)  to  the  scorching  suns  and  rainless  days  of  recent 
summer  seasons. 

To-day  is  dull  and  rather  cold,  but  as  the  rain  has  held  off  we 


256  A   FARMERS    YEAR 

are  carting  hay.  That  from  the  All  Hallows  layer,  No.  37,  having 
been  in  cock,  has  taken  no  great  harm,  but  the  stuff  from  Baker's, 
No.  45,  is  much  damaged,  and  will,  I  think,  need  to  pass  through 
the  chaffing  machine  before  it  comes  to  the  manger.  We  are  still 
cutting  on  No.  5  with  the  machine,  but  owing  to  the  grass  being  so 
laid  and  twisted  it  is  a  tedious  and  difficult  business.  This  morning 
Robson,  Hood,  and  I  had  a  great  confabulation  as  to  the  roofing 
in  of  the  cattle-yard  at  Baker's.  The  span  is  very  wide,  naively, 
twenty-eight  feet,  and  we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  two  rows  of 
oak  posts  will  be  necessary  for  the  support  of  the  roof.  Galvanised 
iron  is  not  heavy  in  itself,  but  the  strain  comes  in  winter,  when  it 
may  chance  to  be  covered  with  six  or  eight  inches  of  snow, 
weighing,  I  suppose,  a  good  many  tons.  This  shed  will  remain 
my  property,  since  I  am  putting  it  up  as  a  tenant's  fixture,  and 
at  the  end  of  my  tenancy  it  must  either  be  taken  over  at  a  valuation 
by  the  landlord  or  sold  for  what  the  materials  will  fetch. 

July  6.— On  the  night  of  the  ist  we  had  torrents  of  rain, 
which  stopped  the  haymaking  and  set  all  hands  carting  and 
hoeing.  Truly  this  year  Candlemas  has  been  as  good  as  its  word. 
'  On  Sunday  I  went  to  afternoon  service  at  Woodton,  which  is 
quite  close  to  Bedingham,  the  two  churches  being  not  more  than 
a  thousand  yards  apart  as  the  crow  flies.  Indeed,  Bedingham 
seems  to  have  been  the  *  mother  '  church  of  Woodton,  and  it  is 
several  times  mentioned  in  the  registers  that  certain  leading 
inhabitants  of  the  latter  place  and  of  Topcroft  received  the  Sacra- 
ments there.  I  believe  also  that  in  old  days  two  chapels  existed 
in  Bedingham  church  dedicated  to  Woodton  and  to  Topcroft,  by 
which  I  understand  that  they  were  set  apart  for  the  use  of  the 
dwellers  in  those  villages.  Woodton  church  is  a  small  but  very 
curious  and  ancient  building,  standing  quite  away  from  the  village, 
but  near  to  the  site  of  the  Hall,  which  was  pulled  down,  so  says 
tradition,  by  an  owner  who  lived  some  miles  away,  and  who  feared 
that  after  his  death  his  wife  would  return  to  live  at  Woodton, 
the  old  home  which  she  preferred.     At  least  it  is  gone,  and  there 


JULY  257 

remain  of  it  now  but  the  well,  part  of  the  stables,  used  as  a 
keeper's  cottage,  the  crumbling  walls  of  the  ancient  garden,  and  a 
tangled  woodland  still  known  as  the  Lady's  Walk.  Alas,  poor 
Lady,  you  cannot  be  more  forgotten  and  dilapidated  than  is  your 
earthly  home  to-day  ! 

The  tower  of  the  church  (I  speak  entirely  from  local  informa- 
tion and  without  guarantee,  being  myself  ignorant  on  the  point) 
is  what  is  called  a  'Thane's  tower,'  that  is  a  tower  such  as, 
according  to  tradition,  Thanes  alone  were  allowed  to  build.  The 
peculiarity  of  Thanes'  towers  seems  to  be  that,  like  this  at 
Woodton,  they  have  four  little  windows  in  them  looking  to  the 
cardinal  points  of  the  compass.  Possibly  the  Thanes  sat  behind 
them  and  watched  for  their  enemies,  or  possibly  they  were  put  to 
some  other  purpose ;  at  any  rate,  after  the  Thanes  and  their 
regime  were  done  with,  the  Normans  finished  the  tower  in  a 
different  style  of  flint  work.  The  font,  which  is  square  in  shape, 
with  carved  panels  and  supported  on  moulded  pillars,  is  pure 
Norman.  For  more  than  two  hundred  years  it  was  supposed  to 
be  quite  plain  stonework,  till,  in  a  happy  hour,  Miss  Long,  the 
daughter  of  the  present  rector,  chanced  to  examine  it,  and  found 
that  it  had  been  bricked  or  plastered  up,  doubtless  to  avoid  thfe 
destructive  zeal  of  the  infamous  William  Dowsing  or  one  of  his 
associates. 

Dowsing  was  appointed  'visitor'  to  the  Suffolk  churches 
by  the  Earl  of  Manchester  in  1643,  and  raged  through  them 
terribly,  destroying  whatever  beautiful  thing  could  be  found, 
whether  it  were  carving,  or  statuary,  or  pictured  glass,  or 
paintings,  upon  the  plea  that  they  were  popish  and  superstitious.^ 
Indeed,  this  pious  wrecker  and  ruffian  kept  a  journal  of  his  per- 
formances, which  is  sorry  reading  for  us  to-day ;  but  still  more 
sorry  is  it  to  see  where  his  hammer  has  been  at  work,  as,  for 
instance,  on  the  lovely  fane  of  Blythborough,  in  Suffolk.  From 
church  to  church  this  Vandal  rushed,  wrecking  as  he  went ;  it  is 
recorded,  indeed,  that  he  ruined  eleven  of  them  in  one  day. 
Whether  he  himself  came  into  Norfolk  I  am  not  certain,  but  if  he 

s 


258  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

did  not  his  fellows  and  subordinates  did,  for  here  at  Ditchingham 
they  have  broken  off  the  heads  of  the  sculptured  saints  at  the  foot 
of  the  tower  and  defaced  the  sacred  emblems  of  the  Bleeding 
Heart  surrounded  by  a  crown  of  thorns.  Little  wonder  that  the 
poor  clergymen  of  that  generation  took  fright,  and  in  some 
instances,  if  time  was  given  them,  plastered  up  the- fonts  and  hid 
such  of  their  treasures  as  were  portable.  For  the  most  part,  when 
they  were  able  to  do  this,  the  carved  work  escaped,  as  the  icono- 
clasts were  in  too  great  a  hurry  and  had  too  much  congenial  sacri- 
lege on  hand  to  search  for  anything  that  was  not  plainly  visible. 

In  Woodton  church  there  still  exists  a  great  part  of  the  stair- 
case which  led  to  the  niche  whence,  in  pre- Reformation  days,  the 
Host  was  elevated  in  the  presence  of  the  congregation.  The  place 
can  yet  be  seen  also  where  the  rood  beam  was  built  into  the  wall,  and 
the  local  tradition  is  that  the  rector  was  in  the  habit  of  preaching 
from  the  centre  of  that  beam.  This  legend  I  decline  to  believe, 
since,  having  with  some  difficulty  scrambled  up  the  little  stairway 
and  inspected  the  site,  I  am  convinced  that  no  elderly  clergyman 
could  have  crawled  along  a  ten-inch  baulk  and  spoken  from  the 
centre  of  it,  standing  at  a  considerable  elevation  above  the  floor  of 
the  church.  Had  he  attempted  it,  vacancies  in  the  cure  of  souls 
at  Woodton  would  have  been  frequent ;  indeed,  I  doubt  whether 
any  preacher  accustomed  to  emphasise  his  points  with  appropriate 
action  would  have  survived  a  month. 

On  the  exterior  of  several  of  the  windows  of  this  church  are 
little  sculptures  of  an  exceptionally  refined  and  charm.ing  character 
representing  the  coiffed  heads  of  nuns  or  queens.  In  the  chancel 
also  is  a  very  beautiful  and  quite  perfect  monument  of  alabaster, 
for,  having  been  wisely  placed  high  up  in  the  wall,  it  is  out  of  reach 
of  easy  ravage  by  boys  and  Puritans.  This  statue  is  erected  to  the 
memory  of  Anne,  wife  of  Robert  Suckling,  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas 
Wodehouse  of  Kimberly  and  Dame  Blanche,  daughter  of  the  Lord 
Carey,  Baron  of  Hunsdon  (query,  Hunstanton).^     The  face  of  the 

'  A  correspondent  writing  from  Florida,  U.S.A.,  informs  me  that  this 
conjecture  is  inaccurate.     It  seems  that  Sir  Henry  Gary,  K.G.,  was  created 


JULY  259 

kneeling  figure  is  turned  towards  the  east,  and,  because  of  its 
position  in  the  deep  niche,  I  doubt  if  anyone  has  seen  it  quite 
clearly  since  it  was  placed  there  generations  ago,  unless  it  be 
those  who  from  time  to  time  have  had  the  curiosity  to  examine  it 
by  aid  of  a  ladder. 

A  few  pages  back  I  stated  my  belief  that  the  registers  in  this 
neighbourhood  were  written  up  at  the  beginning  by  a  clerk  who 
travelled  from  church  to  church.  Here,  at  Woodton,  oddly 
enough,  I  have  discovered  his  name,  for  he  has  scribbled  it  in 
unmistakable  writing  upon  the  fly-leaf  of  the  first  register.  It 
was  Spendlove  ;  probably  the  brother  or  son  of  a  rector  of  Wood- 
ton  of  that  name. 

After  the  year  1730  printed  forms  of  register-books  began  to 
be  issued,  in  which,  as  they  do  to-day,  the  brides  and  bridegrooms 
signed  their  names,  or,  rather,  made  their  marks,  for  not  one  in  a 
score  of  them  could  write.  In  that  day  they  very  seldom  used 
the  X  which  is  now  the  common  token  of  illiterates.  Such 
marks  as  these,  1  ,  or  (^ ,  were  the  favourite  signs,  especially 
among  the  women.  It  is  pathetic  to  look  at  the  long  succession 
of  these  little  marks,  made  every  one  of  them  with  a  trembling 
hand,  and  to  reflect  that  they  are  all  that  remain,  absolutely  the 
only  record,  of  those  forgotten  brides  who  generations  since  bent 
one  by  one  over  this  shabby,  faded  book.  They  have  departed  so 
completely  that  even  those  in  whose  bodies  their  blood  runs  do 
not  so  much  as  know  that  they  existed,  and  these  wavering  signs, 
which  no  one  ever  sees,  made  by  them  in  the  supreme  moment  of 
their  lives,  are  all  that  is  left  to  show  that  once  they  breathed 
this  very  air,  walked  these  fields,  and  passed  beneath  this  ancient 
porch  to  baptism,  to  bridal,  and  to  burial. 

I  never  heard  of  labouring  people,  or  even  of  the  farmer  class, 
taking  the  trouble  to  consult  a  register ;  but  were  they  to  do  so, 
most  of  them  could  establish  their  pedigrees,  at  any  rate  for  the 

in  1559  Baron  Ilr.nsdon  of  Hunsdon,  co.  Hertfordshire,  and  that  this  Dame 
Blanche  was  daughter  to  Sir  John  Carey,  third  Baron  Hunsdon,  whose  second 
husband  was  Sir  Thomas  Wodehouse,  who  died  1658. 

S  2 


26o  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

last  three  hundred  and  fifty  years,  with  much  more  certainty 
than  many  of  their  betters.  It  is  probable,  however,  village 
morality  being  what  it  is,  that  in  the  majority  of  cases  a  descent 
during  such  a  period  of  time  would  not  always  have  been  such  as 
is  recognised  by  law.  It  would  include  a  proportion  of  bars 
sinister. 

Here  are  a  couple  of  curious  epitaphs  from  Woodton  church : — 
On  a  stone,  under  the  symbol  of  a  skull  and  cross-bones  and  an 
hour-glass  with  wings  rising  from  it,  is  cut  : 

My  breath  is  stopt, 
My  glass  is  run, 
My  life  is  cropt, 
And  I  have  done. 

The  second  is  from  a  brass  : 

In  Wootton  porch  among  these  stones 
I  craved  leave  to  lay  my  bones 
Erasmus  Stanhow  inter''  is  heere 
The  I  October  the  78  year. 

This  is  confirmed  by  the  registers,  which  state  that  '  Erasmus 
Stanhaw  of  St.  Margarite  in  Suffolk  was  buried  heere  Oct  ye  1st 
1678.' 

In  the  register-box  was  a  torn  piece  of  paper  which  proved  to 
be  an  interesting  memento  of  the  time  when,  in  order  to  give 
encouragement  to  the  wool  trade,  every  corpse  must  by  law  be 
wrapped  in  a  woollen  shroud.     Here  is  a  copy  of  it : 

'  Elizabeth  Wirr  made  oath  19th  Jan.  1756  that  the  Body  of 
Anne  Squire  Deceased  and  Buried  in  the  Church  of  Wotton,  was 
not  wrapt,  or  Bound  up  with  any  material,  But  Sheeps  wool  only 
and  that  the  Coffin  was  not  lined  or  Faced  with  any  thing  but 
Sheeps  Wool  only. 

'  Sworn  before  me  Francis  Johnson  Vicar  of  Brook. 
*  In  Presence  of  Anne  church 

Mary  Lincoln  ' 


JULY  261 

I  forgot  to  say  that  the  hall  at  Woodton  which  was  pulled 
down  is  reported  to  have  been  practically  a  replica  of  that  in  this 
parish,  having  been  built  by  the  same  architect.  I  do  not  refer 
to  the  old  Ditchingham  Hall,  where  lived  the  early  Bedingfelds 
and,  I  suppose,  the  Bozards  before  them,  but  to  the  new  house 
built  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  years  ago. 

To  me  it  is  a  perfect  mystery  whence  came  all  the  wealth  that 
enabled  so  many  families  which  had  never  been  remarkable  for 
riches  to  build  or  re-build  large  houses  in  and  about  the  Georgian 
era.  In  this  district  alone  there  exist  a  number  of  them  which, 
even  when  labour  and  materials  were  cheaper  than  they  are 
to-day,  must  still  have  cost  great  sums,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
considerable  income  required  to  keep  them  up.  In  times  when  so 
many  horses  were  necessary  and  so  much  wine  and  other  liquor 
was  consumed  housekeeping  cannot  have  been  cheap  in  a  large 
establishment,  whatever  may  have  been  the  price  of  meat  and  milk. 

Yesterday  we  were  carting  hay  from  the  new  pasture,  No.  5  ; 
it  is  an  excellent  crop  and  of  good  quality ;  but  to-day  the  weather 
is  so  threatening  that  we  are  afraid  to  open  the  cocks.  We  have 
finished  cutting  the  three-acre,  No.  11.  This  was  the  first  pasture 
that  I  laid  down,  the  land  being  about  the  worst  I  have  on  the 
farm.  So  lately  as  last  year,  indeed,  doubts  were  expressed  as  to 
whether  the  grasses  would  stand,  and  therefore  I  am  the  more 
delighted  to  see  it  throw  up  so  splendid  a  crop  of  hay.  The  grass 
is  so  thick  and  fine  that  the  machine  can  scarcely  toss  it,  as  the 
hay  winds  up  '  like  a  cart-rope,'  or  rather  like  the  bonds  that  are 
used  in  thatching  stacks.  All  of  this  I  attribute  to  the  sheep, 
which  were  penned  here  at  the  beginning  of  the  year.  Indeed, 
their  beneficent  effect  upon  the  pasture  is  proved  by  one  little 
circumstance.  I  think  that  on  an  earlier  page  I  mentioned 
that  for  some  cause,  which  I  forget,  a  certain  corner  of  this  field 
was  left  unfolded.  Also,  it  happened  that  in  one  small  fold  the 
sheep  lay  for  two  full  nights.  I  have  remembered  these  spots  and 
watched  the  results.  They  are  that  on  the  double  fold  the  crop 
is  even  heavier  than  elsewhere,  whereas  in  the  corner  which  was 


262  A-  FARMER'S    YEAR 

unmanured,  except  by  the  lambs  which  ran  over  it,  its  propor- 
tionate bulk  is  less  by  quite  a  half  than  that  of  the  rest  of  the 
field.  The  same  thing  is  observable  on  the  little  piece  of  old 
pasture  next  to  the  three-acre.  Here  the  sheep  were  penned  for 
one  night  and  then  taken  away  because  a  dog  from  Bungay  came 
and  harried  the  lambs.  On  the  spot  where  they  lay  that  one 
night  there  is  certainly  half  as  much  grass  again  as  elsewhere,  and 
this  although  the  meadow  was  heavily  fed  last  year.  Certainly 
my  belief  in  the  value  of  sheeping  pastures,  and  especially  those 
of  them  which  are  young  and  only  half  established,  seems  so  far  to 
be  justified  by  the  results.  That  of  sheep,  however,  is,  I  believe, 
among  the  hottest  of  manures,  and  if  applied  in  quantity  to  light 
land  often  causes  it  to  burn,  that  is  to  scald  and  turn  brown  in 
hot  weather.  With  clay  lands  such  as  those  under  discussion  it 
is  a  different  matter. 

We  have  also  been  cutting  the  new  pasture.  No.  to,  which  was, 
I  think,  the  third  piece  that  I  laid  down.  This  has  not  been 
sheeped,  so  the  crop  is  nothing  like  that  on  No.  1 1,  although  on  the 
whole  a  good  one.  By  much  the  heaviest  cut  is  down  a  breadth 
of  it  opposite  the  first  gate,  and  this  again  is  to  be  accounted  for 
by  the  action  of  manure,  for  true  indeed  is  the  old  farming  saying, 
*  Muck  is  the  mother  of  money.'  Of  course  all  the  field  has  been 
heavily  fed  by  cows,  but  cows  do  not  improve  land  in  anything 
like  the  same  ratio  as  sheep,  or  cake-fed  stock,  or,  I  believe,  even 
horses,  for  the  reason  that  the  goodness  of  what  they  eat  goes  for 
the  most  part  into  their  milk.  Lying  as  it  does  near  to  the  cattle- 
sheds,  it  has  been  our  custom,  whenever  the  trimmings  from  the 
roots  accumulate  inconveniently,  to  cart  them  into  this  field  and 
scatter  them  there.  As,  however,  it  takes  a  great  many  root 
trimmings  to  fill  even  one  cart,  of  course  all  the  field  does  not  get 
the  benefit  of  the  dose,  and  thus  it  happens  that  the  hay  is  so 
much  thicker  on  the  belt  which  has  thus  been  dressed. 

During  the  last  day  or  two  Peachey  has  been  ploughing  and 
harrowing  that  portion  of  the  vetch  field.  No.  21,  which  has  been 
fed  off  by  the  sheep.     Our  original  idea  was  to  green-soil  (that  is 


'•'^SSgg^Uf'  ■S'-^'iaf'^i-v.,- V 

'  '^K    '^B  ''^ 

•j^^^^^' 

I^HI^^Vv'.', 

<Al 

-^^,|^»t 

1 

JULY  263 

feed  off  a  growing  crop  upon)  the  whole  of  this  little  field,  and 
afterwards  to  plant  it  with  Indian  corn,  as  we  did  with  great  success 
in  the  case  of  some  other  land  last  year.  Owing  to  the  heaviness 
of  the  vetch  crop,  however,  this  has  proved  impracticable,  so  we 
are  leaving  more  than  half  of  it  to  stand  for  seed,  which  always 
comes  in  useful  and  saves  the  expense  of  buying.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  wet,  that  part  which  has  been  fed  is  extraordinarily  hard, 
and  even  after  being  harrowed  and  rolled  is  quite  unfit  to  be 
sown  until  a  good  rain  falls.  No  other  stock  tread  land  so  close 
as  sheep,  especially  in  wet  weather,  as  their  sharp  little  feet  press 
and  re-press  every  inch  of  it  a  score  of  times,  till  it  becomes  of  the 
consistency  of  a  green  brick,  or  that  variety  of  building  material, 
now  rarely  used,  which  we  know  in  this  county  as  clay  lump. 

All  the  ewes  have  now  gone  to  Bedingham  to  run  in  Websdill 
Wood  until  the  remaining  lambs  are  thoroughly  weaned.  In  a 
fortnight's  time  or  so  the  Southdown  ewes  will  return  from  Bed- 
ingham, when  they  and  the  lambs  will  be  fatted  together  for  the 
butcher,  a  fate  which  the  blackface  ewes  escape,  as  we  are  holding 
them  for  breeding  another  year. 

At  Bedingham  this  afternoon  I  found  them  carting  hay  from 
the  two-and-a-half-acre  new  pasture.  No.  10,  which  was  laid  down 
last  year.  It  is  a  very  good  crop.  No.  19,  by  the  wood,  has  also 
been  cut — a  capital  crop.  The  farming  reader  may  remember 
that  this  was  the  first  field  laid  down  at  Bedingham,  that  in  which 
the  deep-rooted  seeds  were  sown  according  to  Mr.  Elliott's  receipt, 
and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  I  watch  it  with  peculiar  interest. 
Up  to  the  present  the  plan  has  certainly  answered  admirably,  and, 
so  far  as  I  can  judge,  the  field,  which,  beyond  feeding  and  a  partial 
dressing  of  mud,  has  received  no  manure,  looks  like  making  a 
really  sound  pasture  on  land  out  of  which  I  was  told  that  pasture 
could  not  be  created.  The  herbs,  and  especially  the  chicory,  it 
is  true,  throw  up  stout  and  somewhat  unsightly  stalks,  which  even 
now  are  rather  tough  to  cut  \  but  these,  while  young,  are  perfectly 
edible,  and  make  no  great  show  in  the  withering  hay. 

Here  at  Bedingham  the  haysel  is  conducted  in  the  old  fashion, 


264  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

for  we  have  no  cutting  machine  and  no  horse-tosser.  This  is  the 
routine.  The  men,  three  of  them,  mow  till  breakfast-time,  or 
perhaps  till  dinner,  then,  if  the  weather  is  fine,  they  turn  the  hay 
cut  two  days  or  so  before,  and,  if  necessary,  cock  it,  in  the  after- 
noon carting  such  of  the  stuff  as  may  be  ready.  It  is  a  somewhat 
slow  process,  but  while  the  '  make  '  is  good  it  answers  well  enough. 
There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  even  in  a  small  holding  farmers 
who  possess  modern  machines  have  a  great  advantage  over  their 
poorer  neighbours.  Without  them  the  time  of  the  entire  force 
on  the  farm  is  occupied  with  the  hay  and  other  absolutely  neces- 
sary tasks,  such  as  the  feeding  of  the  stock.  With  them  a  man 
can  generally  be  spared  to  attend  to  other  matters  which,  at  this 
time  of  the  year,  are  apt  to  press  ]  for  instance,  horse-hoeing, 
cutting  out,  or  singling  in  the  root  fields,  where,  as  always,  the 
weeds  grow  apace. 

I  find  that  there  are  disadvantages  in  planting  kohl-rabi  near 
a  wood,  as  it  appears  to  be  a  plant  for  which  pigeons  show  a 
very  particular  affection ;  at  any  rate,  they  have  devoured  a 
great  number  of  the  leaves.  It  is  said  that  '  mawkins,'  or  scare- 
crows, have  no  terrors  for  these  bold  bad  birds,  and  as  labourers 
for  the  most  part  have  neither  the  skill  nor  the  time  to  go  a- 
shooting,  the  *  dows '  work  their  will  unmolested. 

This  evening  I  was  a  witness  of  a  singular  and  expensive 
exhibition  of  temper  on  the.  part  of  a  young  pony  which  I  have 
bred,  the  progeny  of,  I  think,  a  little  Russian  mare  and  a  high- 
stepping  hackney  cob.  This  animal  has  been  broken,  and  for  a 
few  weeks  driven  regularly,  though  I  fear  not  far  enough.  To- 
night the  groom  put  it  in  the  cart  with  the  assistance  of  another 
man,  but  instead  of  starting  as  usual,  the  pony  reared  up  four  or 
five  times  straight  on  end ;  so  high,  indeed,  that  I  feared  he 
would  fall  backwards.  Finding  that  he  could  do  nothing  in  this 
fashion,  after  a  peculiarly  perpendicular  rear  the  wicked  little 
beast,  whilst  still  in  the  air,  deliberately  doubled  his  front  legs 
under  him  and  hurled  himself  down  on  to  the  ground,  which  he 
did  not  even  touch  with  his  fore  feet.      One  of  the  men  was 


JUL  Y  265 

bundled  out  of  the  cart,  two  considerable  holes  were  made  in  the 
roadway,  and  the  pony  rose  minus  a  vestige  of  hair  on  his  knees. 
These  are,  moreover,  considerably  cut,  thus  taking,  in  all  proba- 
bility, eight  or  ten  pounds  off  his  value,  unless  indeed  he  heals  up 
better  than  can  be  expected.  It  is  a  vexatious  business,  but  1  am 
thankful  that  only  the  animal  was  hurt,  and  not  the  men.  The 
moral  is  that  no  young  horse  should  be  driven  without  knee-caps, 
which,  of  course,  on  this  unlucky  occasion  had  been  forgotten. 

July  8. — Yesterday  we  were  able  to  make  good  progress  with 
the  hay-carting,  as  the  weather,  though  threatening,  held  out. 
There  was  a  fine  stormy  sunset,  and,  viewed  from  the  high  land 
on  the  pit  field.  No.  23,  the  landscape  looking  towards  Beccles  was 
singularly  impressive.  So  dense  and  dark  was  the  thunder-cloud 
which  hung  above  it  that  in  its  shadow  the  trees  beneath  looked 
massive  and  almost  black,  their  aspect,  at  once  gloomy  and  mysteri- 
ous, reminding  me  of  sylvan  scenes  portrayed  by  Mr.  Peppercorn 
in  his  impressive  pictures.  In  a  hedgerow  in  the  middle  distance 
also  appeared  a  line  of  elder  bushes,  just  now  covered  with  masses 
of  white  bloom,  and  the  effect  of  the  light  falling  on  these  from 
beneath  the  edge  of  the  cloud  was  most  vivid  and  striking. 

To-day  I  went  up  the  ladder  to  examine  the  condition  of 
the  hayrick  we  are  building  in  the  Buildings  stack-yard.  Some  of 
the  stuff  which  we  have  carted  on  to  it  from  No.  1 1  was  decidedly 
*  dumpy,'  that  is,  damp  and  heavy  on  the  fork,  a  condition  that 
arises  from  insufficient  making.  Indeed,  the  hay  on  this  piece  is 
so  thick  and  fine  that  with  the  somewhat  sunless  weather  which 
we  have  experienced  it  is  difficult  to  get  it  dry.  I  expected  to 
find  the  stack  hot,  and  I  was  not  disappointed,  for  under  the  tilt 
the  steam  was  rising  steadily,  while  the  surface  of  the  hay  looked 
as  though  boiling  water  had  been  poured  upon  it.  Indeed,  when 
I  thrust  my  arm  into  the  stuff  as  far  as  it  would  go,  the  tem- 
perature was  more  than  I  could  bear  with  comfort.  Now  it  is  a 
good  thing,  and  even  necessary,  that  hay  should  heat  to  a  certain 
extent,  for  otherwise  it  would  lack  '  nose '  and  flavour,  but  once 


266  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

that  limit  is  passed  the  results  are  apt  to  be  serious ;  indeed,  ricks 
thus  overheated  have  been  known  to  take  fire  by  spontaneous 
combustion.  For  this  particular  stack  Hood  bethought  him  of 
an  ingenious  remedy.  Sending  down  to  No.  45  on  Baker's, 
whence  the  trefoil  hay  had  been  carried,  for  a  load  of  dry  rakings, 
he  built  these  into  the  rick,  and  then  carried  more  meadow  hay 
on  to  the  top  of  them.  The  rakings,  being  so  dry  and  difficult 
to  compress,  make  it  easy  for  the  heat  to  escape  and  the  cool 
air  to  enter  into  the  body  of  the  stack ;  in  fact  they  introduce 
a  ventilating  course,  the  action  of  which  will  be  assisted  by  the 
bitter  north-east  wind  that  is  blowing  to-day.  Though  I  have 
never  seen  it  made  use  of,  I  believe  that  straw  is  sometimes  em- 
ployed for  this  purpose  of  hay-rick  ventilation. 

I  see  in  the  Tbnes  to-day  that  the  Committee  which  was 
appointed  two  years  ago  to  consider  the  question  of  Old  Age 
Pensions  have  made  their  report,  which  practically  may  be 
summed  up  in  two  words,  non  possumus.  This,  however,  is  not 
wonderful,  as  it  seems  that  the  terms  of  the  reference  precluded 
the  Committee  from  using  any  scheme  based  on  compulsion,  and 
it  is  fairly  evident  to  anyone  who  has  considered  the  question 
that,  to  be  generally  effective  and  useful,  an  old  age  pension 
scheme  must  be  based  on  compulsion.  To  exclude  compulsion, 
therefore,  from  the  possible  methods  under  the  consideration  of 
the  Committee  was  almost  to  ensure  a  negative  result,  and  to 
doom  that  industrious  body  to  plough  the  sand  for  two  long  years. 

My  own  humble  and  private  views  upon  the  question  of  Old  Age 
Pensions,  which,  if  impracticable  at  present,  are  at  least  sincere,  I 
have  set  out  in  the  beginning  of  this  book,  so  I  need  not  allude  to 
them  again.  What  strikes  me  as  strange,  however,  is  that  at  the 
last  General  Election  a  great  number  of  Unionist  candidates 
preached  this  gospel  with  no  uncertain  voice,  some  because  they 
believed  in  it,  and  some  perhaps  because  they  thought  that  it 
would  pay.  I  remember  that  I  did  for  one,  and  for  the  first 
reason.  Indeed,  the  practice  has  continued  up  to  the  present 
time,  for,  unless  I  am  mistaken,  Old   Age  Pensions  were   men- 


JULY  267 

tioned  on  the  Unionist  placards  in  the  South  Norfolk  election 
two  months  ago,  and  also  in  the  candidate's  address.  Now,  the 
candidates  who  made  use  of  this  war-cry  were  not,  I  think,  in- 
formed that  the  heads  of  the  party  were  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
movement,  or,  if  in  sympathy,  believed  it  to  be  impossible.  Had 
they  received  a  hint  to  this  effect,  most  of  them  would  have 
dropped  Old  Age  Pensions  like  a  hot  coal,  while  those  who, 
with  myself,  are  firm  believers  in  the  potential  benefits  of  com- 
pulsory insurance,  would  have  been  careful  to  explain  that  we 
advocated  it  as  an  individual  fad.  As  it  is,  if  the  matter  is  to 
stop  here— and  in  the  face  of  the  Report  of  the  Committee  I 
suppose  that  it  cannot  go  on — many  a  Unionist  member  will 
look  a  little  foolish  when  the  time  for  the  next  election  comes. 
Indeed,  I  think  it  not  unlikely  that  in  the  country  districts  seats 
will  be  lost  over  this  question.^ 

In  to-day's  paper  also  is  the  report  of  the  debate  in  the  House 
of  Lords  on  the  second  reading  of  the  Benefices  Bill,  which  most 
Churchmen  hope  may  become  law.  But  some  Churchmen,  of 
whom  I  am  one,  think  that  it  does  not  go  half  far  enough,  since  it 
is  very  difficult  to  see  any  moral  difference  between  the  sale  of  a 
next  presentation  and  the  sale  of  an  advowson  ;  that  is,  of  a  right  to 
perpetual  presentation  whenever  a  vacancy  may  arise.^     I  fear, 

'  Since  the  above  passage  was  written  a  second  Committee  has  been 
appointed.  Will  it  result  in  anything  ?  I  doubt  it.  Except  upon  a  basis  of 
compulsory  insurance,  a  problem  with  which  no  Government  will  attempt  to 
deal  at  present,  I  believe  the  whole  question  of  Old  Age  Pensions  to  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  practical  politics. 

'^  I  ask  respectfully  whether  advertisements  such  as  I  reprint  below  tend 
to  advance  the  reputation  of  the  Church  of  England  ?  They  refer  to  these 
counties,  and  are  cut  at  hazard  from  recent  issues  of  the  Times ^  names  only 
being  omitted. 

<  Miscellaneous 

*  Advowson,  Suffolk,  for  sale,  within  four  miles  of town  and  railway 

station,  branch  of  G.E.R.  Commuted  tithe,  883/.  Twenty-nine  acres  of 
glebe.  Present  net  income,  543/.  Good  rectory  house  and  grounds,  charmingly 
situated,  with  capital  shooting  and  golf  links  in  the  neighbourhood.    Incumbent 


268  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

however,  that  there  are  many  people  who  would  differ  violently 
from  the  opinions  of  Church  of  England  progressives  like  myself, 
although  often  enough  these  are  founded  on  long  and  careful  obser- 
vation of  the  working  of  the  present  system  in  country  parishes 
and  elsewhere.  For  my  part,  I  think  that  the  chief  immediate 
need  of  the  Church — and  not  less  in  villages  than  in  towns — is 
discipline  and  uniformity  of  view  and  ritual,  ends  that  can  be 
obtained  by  putting  greater  power  into  the  hands  of  the  bishops, 
and  still  more  by  the  readmission  of  the  laity  to  what,  as  I  believe, 
was  their  ancient  right,  some  real  and  effective  share  in  its  govern- 
ment. At  present  they  have  none,  for  lay  representatives  are 
naught,  and  churchwardens  but  pew-openers  writ  large.  It  seems 
strange,  for  instance,  that  in  a  single  parish,  and  under  the  authority 
of  the  same  rector,  services  of  a  very  different  tone  and  character 
should  be  carried  on  in  separate  churches.  And  yet  this  happens. 
Surely  the  service  and  the  ritual  should  not  be  left  to  the  individual 
discretion  of  the  clergyman  ;  surely  they  should  be  settled  by  the 
bishop,  or  by  a  council  of  bishops,  which  might  act  with  the 
assistance  and  support  of  a  council  of  the  laity.  Otherwise  all  is 
confusion,  religion  is  brought  into  contempt,  and,  as  I  have  amply 
experienced  as  a  churchwarden,  trouble  and  bitterness  ensue. 

A  man  may  be  a  moderate  High  Churchman  and  not  object  to 
choral  services  and  vestments,  or  even  to  incense  which  is  sym- 
bolical, yet  it  may  be  anathema  to  that  same  man  to  see  a  clergy- 
man kissing  a  book,  or  some. portion  of  his  elaborate  attire. 
Another  may  overlook  the  kissing  but  will  take  grave  offence  at 
the  prostrations  of  priests  or  attendants  before  the  altar,  or  to  being 
sprinkled  with  water,  or  to  the  leading  of  girls  and  young  married 
women  into  the  confessional.     And  so  forth. 

In  religious  as  in  other  matters,  quot  hojimies  tot  sentefitia,  but 

in  68th  year.  Population  (census  1891),  598.    Voluntary  Church  School.    For 

further  parliculars  apply  to 

'  Ad vowson,  Suffolk.  Life  over  80.  Gross  500/.,  net  300/.  Pop.  500. 
Rail,  f  mile.  Beautiful  rectory  and  grounds.  For  sale,  half  down,  half  on 
vacancy,  without  interest.  "  Safeguard  against  Simony,"  2n(l  Edit. ,  13  stamps. 
,  M.A.,  Cambridge.' 


JULY  269 

all  these  various  opinions,  when  put  in  practice,  do  not,  so  far  as 
my  observation  has  gone — and  recently  we  have  had  object-lessons 
in  these  counties— enhance  the  position  or  cement  the  unity  of  the 
Church — indeed,  they  furnish  arguments  to  its  critics  and  oppor- 
tunity to  its  rivals.  Imagine,  for  instance,  the  comments  of  the 
College  of  Cardinals  upon  reading  a  report  of  the  police  court  pro- 
ceedings against  Mr.  Kensit  !  But  while  our  present  system  pre- 
vails, while  clergymen  can  defy  their  bishops,  or  bishops  will  not 
control  their  clergymen,  while  cures  of  souls  are  advertised  and 
bought,  while  an  incumbency  is  a  material  freehold  as  well  as  a 
spiritual  charge,  these  questions  must  continue  to  arise,  and 
Churchmen  must  continue  to  see,  as  a  matter  of  property  and  not 
of  fitness,  men  occupying  positions  for  which  they  are  not  suited, 
with  an  almost  absolute  right  to  hold  them  until  death.  Also  the 
spirit  of  mutiny  will  spread  and  deepen. 

In  the  future,  although  it  may  be  distant,  I  believe  that  all  this 
will  be  changed ;  priests  will  not  be  pitchforked  into  livings  by  the 
arbitrary  decision  of  the  owners  of  advowsons,  which  in  practice 
often  means  by  their  own  decision,  but  will  be  selected  by  proper 
authorities,  in  consultation  may  be  with  the  representatives  of  the 
parishioners,  for  their  qualities  and  nothing  else.  Also,  perhaps, 
the  revenues  of  the  Church  will  be  paid  into  a  general  fund  and 
portioned  out  according  to  its  local  needs,  to  be  supplemented,  if 
needful,  by  the  contributions  of  the  laity. 

I  think  that  I  know  the  other  side  of  the  question,  as  I  have 
myself,  for  what  at  the  time  I  considered  to  be  good  reasons,  pur 
chased  a  next  presentation,  and  in  due  course  presented  to  the 
living.  But  my  view,  right  or  wrong,  is  that  the  whole  system  is 
bad,  and  should  be  changed.  I  know  the  common  answer  is  that 
if  this  were  done  the  '  best  class  of  men '  would  not  enter  the  Church. 
Some  hold,  on  the  other  hand,  that  they  w^ould  not  be  of  the 
best  class  who  were  kept  out  thus — but  rather,  for  the  most  part, 
men  who  seek  the  greatest  possible  pay  in  return  for  the  least 
possible  labour,  and  whose  desire  it  is,  by  purchase  or  interest,  to 
lay  up  for  themselves  treasure  of  those  snug  and  easy  livings  which. 


2  70  A    FARMER'S    YEAR 

in  a  more  ideally  managed  institution,  would  be  reserved  as  the 
resting-places  of  its  aged  and  work-worn  servants.  Sundry  sine- 
cures and  abuses  have  vanished  during  the  last  few  generations, 
yet  the  Church  still  finds  faithful  ministers,  and  many  believe  that 
the  more  she  is  purified  the  greater  will  be  the  opportunity  of  her 
true  votaries — of  those  who  serve  her  first  for  herself  and  afterwards 
for  their  own  advantage.  Amongst  plentiful  examples,  the  exist- 
ence of  such  noble  and  self-denying  corporations  as  the  Universi- 
ties Mission  to  Central  Africa,  whose  devoted  members,  I  am  told, 
in  most  instances  receive  nothing  but  food,  lodging  and  an  allow- 
ance for  clothes,  proves  that  such  men  exist,  and  will  come  forward 
when  the  call  for  them  arises.  But  the  labourer  is  not  grudged  his 
hire — in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  I,  for  one,  should  like  to  see 
that  hire  considerably  augmented — and  doubtless  these  are 
counsels  of  perfection.  Yet  is  it  not  towards  such  counsels,  by 
many  a  thorny  avenue  of  doubt,  failure,  and  derision,  that  the 
spiritual  nature  of  man,  as  expressed  in  faith  and  works,  should 
and  does  make  good  its  slow  advance  ? 

Of  one  thing  I  am  almost  certain — if  the  Church  does  not  or 
cannot  reform  itself,  ere  long  the  laity  will  lose  patience  and  take 
the  matter  into  their  own  hands.  Then  perchance  may  come  not 
reform  but  revolution. 

July  9. — To-day  is  exceptionally  cold  and  dull,  with  the  usua\ 
strong  north-east  wind,  and  a  temperature  this  evening  on  a  south 
wall  of  about  50°.  Even  in  this  climate  it  strikes  one  as  a  little 
strange  on  the  9th  of  July  to  see  people  driving  about  the  roads 
wrapped  up  in  thick  shawls  and  ulsters.  I  said  some  days  ago 
that  the  farming  position  was  becoming  critical,  and  now  for 
'  becoming '  we  must  read  '  become.'  Suitable  weather  may  yet 
save  the  situation,  but  if  so  it  must  be  met  with  soon,  as,  if  we  do 
not  have  sunshine  within  a  week,  the  corns  will,  I  think,  be  poor. 

July  12. — After  Sunday  the  loth,  which  was  cold  and  dull 
with  a  nor'-east  wind,  the  weather  seems  to  have  taken  a  turn, 


JULY  271 

as,  notwithstanding  the  nipping  breeze,  yesterday  was  fine  and  sun- 
shiny, an  ideal  haymaking  day.  We  have  carted  the  remainder 
of  the  hay  on  Nos.  10  and  11,  and  cut  a  little  more  of  the  back 
lawn,  No.  7.  I  noticed  that  the  stacks  at  All  Hallows  and  at 
Baker's  are  leaning  a  good  deal ;  indeed  they  have  been  supported 
with  props.  Their  bent  seems  to  be  towards  the  direction  of  the 
prevailing  winds— that  is,  to  the  north  and  east.  This  I  cannot 
understand,  as  they  ought  to  lean  the  other  way.  The  theory,  I 
believe,  is  that  the  wind  blows  the  heat  in  the  stack  to  the  further 
side,  where  the  increased  warmth,  acting  on  the  hay,  causes  it  to 
ferment  and  sink  quicker  than  on  the  face  that  is  left  cool. 
The  practice  on  my  farm  this  year,  however,  seems  to  be  the  other 
way  about.     Possibly  however,  this  is  due  to  indifferent  stacking. 

To-day  we  began  to  cut  the  three-oak  or  '  Brittle '  meadow.  No.  9, 
so  called  because  tradition  says  that  a  brickfield  once  existed  in 
this  field,  where,  owing  to  its  having  been  shut  down  so  late,  the 
grass  is  somewhat  thinner  than  elsewhere.  Buck,  by  nature  a 
critic,  is  of  opinion  that  the  back  lawn  was  cut  too  soon, 
before  the  hay  had  got  its  proper  growth ;  a  proceeding,  he  added, 
'  that  minded  him  of  killing  a  sucking  pig.'  I  cannot  say  that  I 
altogether  agree  with  him,  for  grass  mown  before  it  has  attained 
quite  its  full  growth  makes  the  best  and  most  succulent  hay ; 
also  we  must  be  getting  on,  or  we  shall  have  harvest  upon  us 
before  haysel  is  done  and  the  roots  are  thinned  out. 

Whether  it  was  cut  too  soon  or  not,  the  back  lawn  this  year 
has  certainly  borne  a  good  crop  of  beautiful  quality.  That  lawn 
offers  a  busy  and  picturesque  sight  this  afternoon.  By  the  low 
fence  at  the  top  end  the  mower  is  still  at  work,  as,  even  when  it 
is  hidden  behind  the  trees,  may  be  known  by  the  sound  of  its 
rattling  hum.  Near  at  hand,  by  the  tennis-court,  a  boy  leads  the 
horse-tosser,  and  it  passes  to  and  fro  surrounded  with  a  very  halo 
of  whirling  grass,  through  which  the  light  shines  as  it  floats  and  falls. 
In  another  part  of  the  field  the  horse-rake  is  dragging,  the  hay 
opened  up  previously  from  the  cocks  into  long  dull  green  lines, 
down  which  come  the   waggon  and   cart  to  be  laden,  each  in 


272  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

its  turn  to  roll  off  presently  to  the  stack-yard,  a  labourer  still 
seated  atop  of  the  towering  load.  There  it  is  heaped  and 
hidden  in  the  bowels  of  the  great  stack,  to  be  cut  again  in  the 
dark  days  of  winter  as  fragrant  food  for  the  cows,  that  munch  it 
eagerly  while  they  stand  in  the  shelter  of  the  shed  and  dream  of 
the  sweet  spring  grasses. 

In  my  diary  for  April  I  think  that  I  spoke  of  the  difficulty  our 
forefathers  must  have  had  in  feeding  their  cattle  in  winter  before 
the  days  of  root  culture.  Since  then,  in  'The  Five  Hundred 
Points  of  Good  Husbandry'  of  Thomas  Tusser,  who  wrote  in 
1557,  I  find  that  straw  and  hay  were  eked  out  with  the  bare 
branches  of  trees.     Here  is  the  quotation  : 

If  frost  do  continue,  this  lesson  doth  well, 

For  comfort  of  cattle  the  fuel  to  fell : 

From  every  tree  the  superfluous  boughs, 

Now  prune  for  thy  neat,  thereupon  to  go  browse. 

In  pruning  and  trimming  all  manner  of  trees, 
Reserve  to  each  cattle  their  properly  fees. 
If  snow  do  continue,  sheep  hardly  thai  fare, 
Crave  mistle  and  ivy  for  them  for  to  spare. 

In  those  days  the  cattle  and  '  neat ' — that  is,  horned  oxen — must 
have  looked  forward  to  the  coming  of  spring  with  considerable 
anxiety.  This,  indeed,  is  still  the  case  in  Africa,  where  it  is 
not  uncommon  to  see  oxen  that  were  fat  as  butter  at  the  be- 
ginning of  winter  so  thin  and  weak  before  the  grass  grows  again 
that  they  are  scarcely  able  to  stand.     Many  indeed  die  of  poverty. 

July  14. — Yesterday  we  had  some  showers,  which  stopped  the 
hay,  but  to-day  is  warm  and  rather  dull,  and  we  are  carting  again 
from  the  back  lawn.  At  Bedingham  they  have  not  carted  any 
more,  but  are  cutting  the  far  meadow.  No.  11.  Although  the 
machine  has  its  beauties,  after  a  long  course  of  it  it  is  pretty  to 
watch  the  mowers  at  work,  and  to  hear  the  long  hu-ush  of  the 
scythes  as  they  sweep  through  the  deep  cool  grass.  I  found 
Moore  indignant  because  Hood,  perhaps  by  way  of  chastening  his 


JULY  273 

pride,  had  told  him  that  he  could  '  chuck  a  sixpence '  anywhere 
into  that  field  of  grass  and  find  it  again — by  which  he  meant  to 
convey  that  the  crop  was  decidedly  thin.  '  If  he'd  been  a-dragging 
of  a  scythe  through  it  all  day  long  he  wouldn't  think  it  too  thin/ 
Moore  added  wrathfully.  I  consoled  him  by  saying  that  I  thought 
the  cut  a  very  good  one ;  much  better,  indeed,  than  when  we 
mowed  this  field  two  years  ago.  I  think  it  will  come  out  at  quite 
a  ton  and  a  quarter  an  acre,  if  not  more,  as  the  grass  here, 
although  not  tall,  is  exceedingly  thick  at  bottom. 

The  pigeons  continue  to  do  a  great  deal  of  mischief  to  the 
kohl-rabi  on  the  new  drained  field  by  the  wood,  No.  18.  Moore 
is  going  to  borrow  a  gun  from  a  neighbour  and  try  to  shoot 
them  on  Sunday  morning.  Unless  he  catches  them  sitting  I 
do  not  think  that  any  young  *  dows  '  will  be  orphaned. 

July  15. — St.  Swithun's,  and  a  beautiful  day,  with  a  rising 
glass  and  a  north  to  north-easterly  wind.  Clearly  the  Saint  does 
not  intend  to  '  christen  the  apples '  this  year ;  indeed,  everybody 
thinks  that  he  is  going  to  give  us  a  long  spell  of  fine  weather. 
There  is  an  almost  universal  belief  in  St.  Swithun  in  these  parts, 
and  certainly,  so  far  as  my  memory  goes,  it  is  justified.  I  hope  it 
may  be  so  this  year,  as  we  sadly  need  a  spell  of  summer  weather. 

We  are  considering  the  advisability  of  buying  a  reaper — an 
expense  that  seems  to  be  justified  by  our  corn  area.  I  have  been 
to  Bungay  this  afternoon  to  look  at  a  specimen  which  is  highly 
recommended,  a  very  light  but  strong  and  serviceable  machine  of 
American  make.  It  is  curious,  by  the  way,  that  the  Americans 
should  have  won  such  a  hold  of  the  market  in  agricultural  ma- 
chinery. I  suppose  that  there  are  English-made  reapers,  and  as, 
on  the  Christian  principle  of  turning  the  other  cheek  to  the  smiter, 
I  prefer  giving  my  support,  insignificant  as  it  may  be,  to  home 
industries,  I  should  have  been  glad  to  buy  one,  but  there  do  not 
seem  to  be  any  on  show  at  Bungay.  If  manufacturers  wish  to  sell 
their  articles  they  must  have  local  agents  to  push  them.  Farmers, 
very  naturally,  have   a   great   dislike   to   buying  things   through 

T 


2  74  ^   FARMER'S    YEAR 

advertisements  only,  or  that  are  sent  by  some  distant  firm.  If  they 
buy  at  home,  not  only  do  they  give  their  custom  among  their 
own  people,  but  also  the  local  merchant  who  sells  to  them  is  more 
or  less  responsible  for  the  article  sold,  and  will  generally  undertake 
its  repair.  The  advantage  of  this  can  scarcely  be  over-estimated, 
especially  in  the  case  of  any  sudden  breakage  while  the  machine  is 
in  active  use. 

The  price  of  this  machine — that  is  a  reaper  only,  not  a  binder — 
is  26/.,  which  seems  a  good  deal  of  money  for  a  farmer  in  these 
times  to  expend  on  one  article.  In  certain  seasons,  however,  it  is 
quite  possible  that  it  would  pay  its  cost  twice  over,  for  when  the 
spell  of  fine  weather  is  short  the  rapid  work  of  a  machine  has  an 
enormous  advantage  over  the  slow  toil  of  the  labourer,  even  if  the 
labourer  can  be  found,  which  nowadays  is  not  always  the  case. 
It  is,  however,  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  reaper  will  cut  corn  in 
every  case  and  every  season.  So  long  as  the  straw  stands  up 
quite  straight  it  will  deal  with  it  admirably,  but  if  it  is  badly  laid 
and  twisted  about  the  machine  often  does  more  harm  than  good. 
Nor  is  it  safe  to  use  it  among  very  tall  and  thick  beans  if  they  are 
in  the  least  beaten  down.  Here  also  we  do  not  put  a  reaper  into 
barley,  as  the  treading  of  the  horses  is  too  destructive  to  that  delicate 
grain ;  moreover,  the  rriachine  throws  off  the  corn  in  sheaves  or 
bundles,  which  is  not  good  for  barley,  that  should  be  spread  out 
thin  to  dry  as  it  leaves  the  scythe. 

July  16. — To-day  I  experienced  one  of  those  disappointments 
which  are  the  natural  lot  of  those  who  try  to  improve.  Some 
years  ago  I  planted  willows  round  the  edges  of  the  dry  marsh, 
No.  18,  and  the  low  marsh.  No.  19,  setting  them  also  on  the 
bank  of  the  Waveney  that  borders  those  fields.  I  went  to  much 
trouble  and  some  expense  about  these  trees,  enclosing  them  sepa- 
rately for  the  most  part  by  means  of  stout  stakes,  four  of  which 
were  sunk  at  the  proper  angle  and  at  a  distance  from  each  other. 
Round  the  stakes  I  fixed  barbed  wire,  about  five  strands  of  it 
to  each  sapling.     From  the  beginning  I  had  bad  luck  with  these 


JULY  275 

willows,  for  two  years  of  drought  coming  after  they  had  been  set 
caused  most  of  them  on  the  dry  marsh  to  die.  Some  of  those  on 
the  low  marsh,  however,  and  all  that  were  planted  by  the  river 
edge,  thrived  admirably.  Only  a  week  or  two  ago  I  noticed  the 
beautiful  heads  which  they  were  making,  several  of  them  about 
five  feet  through. 

This  morning  I  went  to  see  what  progress  was  being  made 
with  the  cutting  of  the  low  marsh,  and  on  my  way  stopped 
to  look  at  the  young  cattle  and  in-calf  heifers  that  are  run- 
ning on  No  18,  through  which  one  must  pass  to  reach  No.  19. 
All  of  them,  looking  very  sleek  and  comfortable,  were  gathered 
by  the  bank  of  the  river,  but  as  I  approached  to  examine 
them  I  noticed  that  the  stems  of  the  young  willows  had  unac- 
countably turned  white.  In  another  minute  I  discovered  the 
truth.  These  destructive  animals  had  stripped  them  of  every 
inch  of  bark ;  had  stripped  them  from  the  branches  to  the 
ground.  Close  as  the  strands  of  wire  were  set,  heedless  of 
pricks  and  cuts,  they  had  thrust  their  heads  between  them,  and 
by  patience  and  perseverance  had  contrived  to  peel  off  every 
fragment  of  the  sweet  and  succulent  bark.  I  can  scarcely  describe 
what  I  felt  when  I  understood  that  the  care  of  years  had  thus 
been  brought  to  nothing,  for  though  the  trees  still  looked  green 
and  vigorous,  I  knew  well  that  they  must  die.  Returning  home, 
I  reproached  Hood  with  some  warmth  for  not  having  informed 
me  of  what  was  going  on,  and  for  his  neglect  in  not  taking  steps  to 
stop  it,  only  to  discover  that  my  wrath,  if  natural,  was  unjust.  It 
seems  that  so  lately  as  the  previous  day  the  trees  were  quite 
uninjured.  Then,  as  ill  luck  would  have  it,  some  inquisitive 
beast  contrived  to  get  a  taste  of  one  of  them,  and  to  communi- 
cate his  delight  to  the  others.  In  twenty-four  hours  they  had 
destroyed  every  willow. 

The  truth  is  that  unless  great  expense  is  incurred  to  fence  each 
tree  in  such  an  impregnable  fashion  that  nothing  by  any  possi- 
bility can  reach  or  force  its  way  to  it,  it  is  absolutely  useless  to 
plant  where  any  animals  are  turned  out  to  graze,  since,  through 


276  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

idleness  and  curiosity,  they  will  not  rest  till  they  have  destroyed 
them.  These  particular  trees  might  have  survived  to  grow  quite 
big,  but  sooner  or  later  a  horse  or  an  ox  would  have  got  a  taste  of 
the  bark,  and  then  the  end  must  have  come.  Plantations  to  suc- 
ceed should  be  in  places  quite  apart,  where  no  four-legged  creature 
can  enter.  Horse  stock  and  donkeys  are  especially  destructive 
in  this  respect,  as  they  will  gnaw  any  smooth-barked  trees,  even 
after  these  have  attained  the  size  of  timbers.  I  know  of  nothing 
more  melancholy  than  to  see,  as  more  than  once  I  have  seen, 
park-lands  which  have  been  carefully  planted  by  some  owner  and 
subsequently  let,  in  which  the  tenant  has  allowed  the  tree-rails  to 
be  broken  down,  and  the  beautiful  growing  chestnuts  and  beeches 
to  be  gnawed  to  death  by  colts  and  cattle. 

These  losses,  however,  vexatious  as  they  may  be,  are  trivial 
compared  to  those  to  which  planters  are  exposed  in  other  lands. 
Thus,  in  Cyprus,  the  forests  upon  thousands  and  thousands  of 
acres  have  been  destroyed  by  the  ravages  of  that  iniquitous 
animal,  the  goat.  In  South  Africa — land  of  pests  and  plagues — 
it  is  the  same  story,  for  there,  in  addition  to  other  dangers,  grass- 
fires  have  to  be  guarded  against.  There  are  few  things  sadder  to 
see  than  a  fine  plantation  of  red  or  blue  gums,  the  result  of  the 
care  and  cultivation  of  years,  withered  up  in  a  single  night,  pro- 
bably through  the  neglect  of  some  drunken  man  or  Kaffir.  Here 
is  an  extract  from  the  recently  issued  report  of  an  African  company 
in  which  I  am  blessed  with  shares.     It  speaks  for  itself. 

'The  directors  much  regret  to  state  that  the  tree-planting 
venture  has,  owing  to  local  mismanagement,  locusts,  white  ants, 
drought  and  frost,  turned  out  a  total  failure.  The  whole  cost  to 
date  stood  in  our  books  at  9,012/.  5^.  3^.,  of  which  7,012/.  5^.  3^/. 
has  been  written  off  as  a  loss. ' 

After  this  it  seems  foolish  to  be  vexed  at  the  destruction  of  a 
few  willows. 

Willows,  by  the  way,  if  of  the  proper  sort,  are  now  about  the 
most  valuable  timber  that  can  be  grown  in  England.  Not  only 
do  they  meet  with  a  ready  sale  for  manufacture  into  cricket-bats, 


JULY  277 

but  of  late  years  they  have  been  in  great  demand  for  sawing  into 
dust,  which  is,  I  understand,  used  in  the  making  of  wood 
powders. 

July  18. — St.  Swithun  has  not  disappointed  us.  This  is  a 
splendid  hay  day,  hot,  with  a  high  west  wind.  The  cutter  and 
tosser  are  busy  on  No.  19,  but  the  grass  there  is  not  so  thick  or 
so  good  as  it  was  last  year.  These  marshes  always  do  best  in 
a  dry  season  ;  but  this  has  been  wet  enough  to  bring  out  the  water 
over  them,  which,  if  it  stands  for  more  than  a  few  hours,  turns 
the  foot  of  the  grasses  brown  and  rots  them,  so  that  in  places 
they  come  coarse  and  scanty.  The  only  herb  that  the  floods 
do  not  affect  are  the  docks,  which  grow  here  with  frightful 
vigour,  and  have  roots  like  carrots.  The  presence  of  so  many 
hundreds  of  these  poisonous  weeds  standing  above  the  level  of 
the  grass  like  young  and  particularly  flourishing  trees,  each  of 
them  laden  with  thousands  upon  thousands  of  ripening  seeds, 
is  to  me  a  most  distressing  sight,  but  as  yet  we  have  found 
it  quite  impossible  to  attempt  to  get  rid  of  them.  Indeed, 
this  can  only  be  done  if  the  marsh  is  fed,  and  ever  since  I 
have  had  it  in  hand  it  has  been  mown,  when  the  docks  are 
collected  out  of  the  hay  into  heaps  and  burnt.  The  other  day 
I  found  a  dock  growing  on  a  manure  heap,  whither  it  had  been 
brought  among  the  mud  fyed  out  of  a  marsh  dyke.  That 
plant  was  over  seven  feet  high.  I  also  discovered  that  there 
exists  a  living  creature  that  will  eat  docks,  for  in  the  root  of 
one  which  I  pulled  up  I  found  a  white,  fat,  and  most  unwhole- 
some-looking grub,  which  had  gnawed  a  deep  channel  all  down 
its  length,  without,  however,  in  the  slightest  degree  affecting 
its  general  health. 

The  hay  off"  this  marsh  has  a  curious  quality.  Although  in  wet 
seasons  it  is  coarse  and  reedy-looking,  and  therefore  would  fetch 
but  a  moderate  price  at  market,  even  when  it  has  been  saved  in 
bad  condition,  after  being  washed  with  floods  and  rain,  stock  will 
eat  it  in  preference  to  the  best  upland  hay.     Hood  tells  me  that 


278  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

he  has  frequently  seen  the  cattle  turn  to  it  from  any  other  sort  of 
food,  so  I  suppose  that  there  must  be  among  it  some  grass  which 
gives  it  a  flavour  delightful  to  their  taste. 

As  the  corn  ripens  and  the  ground  gets  hard  the  sparrows  are 
beginning  to  do  much  damage  to  the  wheat,  especially  in  fields 
that  lie  near  the  village.  A  tenant  of  mine,  whom  I  met  this 
morning,  tells  me  that  he  is  *  fairly  crazed '  with  them,  and  that  in 
one  plot  they  have  nearly  stripped  the  ringes  which  are  nearest  the 
hedge.  It  is  not  so  much  what  these  vermin  eat  that  does  the 
mischief,  as  what  they  destroy.  I  believe  that  for  every  grain  they 
swallow  they  throw  down  six.  Also  I  hear  great  complaints  of  loss 
from  rooks,  which,  being  unable  to  find  grubs  and  worms  in  the 
hard  ground,  devour  whatever  they  can  discover. 

July  20. — Yesterday  and  to-day  have  been  much  colder,  with 
the  usual  north-east  wind ;  indeed,  this  evening  the  temperature 
is  down  to  50°.  The  glass  also  is  rising  and  the  ground  already 
grows  steely  with  drought.  Three  men— all  that  can  be  spared 
from  the  hay-  are  engaged  in  cutting  out  the  swedes  on  Baker's, 
No.  34,  a  slow  and  arduous  job  owing  to  the  hardness  of  the  land. 
In  order  to  get  room  for  their  hoes  they  work  leaving  a  row  un- 
touched between  each  man,  which  is  dealt  with  on  the  next  journey 
down  the  lines.  When,  as  is  the  case  on  Baker's,  the  land  is 
poisoned  with  rubbish  and  there  is  a  full  plant  of  swedes,  the 
cutting  of  them  out  is  rather  a  delicate  operation,  as  about  a 
dozen  plants  are  destroyed  for  every  one  that  is  left  hanging 
limply  by  a  mere  filament  of  root,  from  which  the  hoe  has  dragged 
away  the  earth  in  clearing  the  surrounding  weeds.  It  is  astonish- 
ing that  these  little  plants  can  pick  themselves  up  again  after 
such  rough  treatment ;  but  return  to  the  field  in  a  week  or  so, 
especially  if  there  has  been  a  shower  of  rain,  and  you  will  find 
them  standing  stiff  and  straight  and  not  a  little  improved  by 
the  thinning  of  the  family.  '  One  man  dead,  another  man's  bread,' 
runs  the  old  Boer  saying.  It  applies  to  plants  as  well  as  to  human 
beings. 


JULY  279 

I  see  in  the  paper  to-day  that  the  Government  has  given  way 
suddenly  on  the  Vaccination  Bill,  and  that  henceforth  '  conscien- 
tious objection '  on  the  part  of  parents  is  to  entitle  them  to  dis- 
regard the  law  and  neglect  the  vaccination  of  their  children.  It 
appears,  and  this  is  my  reason  for  talking  about  the  matter  here, 
that  we  magistrates  are  to  decide  whether  the  objection  in  each  case 
is  one  of  conscience  or  of  mere  prejudice  and  idleness  ;  that  is  to 
say,  that  we  are  to  sift  a  man's  mind  and,  without  any  evidence 
beyond  his  own  statement,  to  decide  whether  he  is  speaking  the 
truth.  I  maintain  that  the  task  is  impossible,  and  one  which 
should  not  be  laid  upon  the  shoulders  of  any  judge.  In  practice, 
what  will  probably  happen  is  that  the  chairman  or  clerk  will  ask  the 
objecting  parent  if  he  or  she  is  prepared  to  take  an  oath  that  his 
or  her  objection  to  the  vaccination  of  the  child  is  founded  on  con- 
scientious scruples.  The  parent  or  guardian  will  reply  that  he  is, 
and  there  will  be  an  end  of  the  matter. 

These  safeguards  even,  such  as  they  are,  will  scarcely  stand, 
for  what  official  or  Board  of  Guardians  will  go  to  the  expense 
and  worry  of  instituting  prosecutions  to  which  the  answer  is  so 
easy  and  complete  ?  My  belief  is,  that  knowing  this,  but  a  small 
proportion  of  anti-vaccinationists  will  take  the  trouble  even  to 
apply  for  a  certificate.*     One  may  be  certain,  too,  that  henceforth 

'  This  view  seems  to  be  borne  out  by  returns  recently  issued  by  the  Local 
Government  Board.     I  take  the  following  report  from  a  newspaper  : — 

*  This  return  shows  that  between  the  date  of  the  passing  of  the  Act  and 
the  31st  December,  1898,  the  number  of  certificates  of  conscientious  objection 
received  by  the  vaccinating  officers  was  203,413,  and  that  the  number  of 
children  to  whom  such  certificates  related  was  230,147.  It  is  explained  that 
the  number  of  unvaccinated  children  in  England  and  Wales  at  the  time  of  the 
passing  of  the  Act  in  respect  of  whom  certificates  under  Section  2  might  have 
been  appUed  for  cannot  be  stated,  but  over  12,500,000  births  were  registered 
during  the  years  1885-98,  and  the  total  number  of  children,  including  all  who 
died  before  vaccination,  not  reported  as  having  been  vaccinated  may  be  taken 
at  3,235,000.' 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  thought  that,  allowing  for  the  deaths,  there  are  at  the 
present  moment  something  under  three  million  unvaccinated  young  persons 
moving  about  amongst  us. 


28o  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

the  workings  of  conscience  upon  this  matter  will  be  marvellously 
quickened  among  certain  classes.  If  the  same  test  could  be  applied 
to  the  case  of  sending  children  to  school,  in  six  months  the  class- 
rooms would  be  half  emptied  by  '  conscientious  objections.'  A  false- 
hood is  easily  spoken,  and  such  an  Act  seems  to  put  a  premium  on 
the  speaking  of  it.  Among  tens  of  thousands  of  the  population,  by 
consent  of  the  State,  vaccination,  in  my  belief  one  of  the  greatest 
boons  that  the  century  has  brought  to  mankind,  will  henceforth 
cease  to  exist.  Never  before,  I  imagine,  at  least  in  these  enlightened 
days,  has  such  sanction  been  given  to  the  wretched  theory  that 
'  freedom  '  consists  in  giving  a  man  the  right  to  gratify  his  own 
whim,  however  mischievous,  at  the  cost  of  society  at  large,  and 
never  before  has  the  doctrine  of  the  power  of  the  parent  over 
his  offspring  been  pushed  so  far.  In  future  an  indolent,  or  a  pre- 
judiced, or  a  '  conscience-stricken  '  father  or  guardian  is  to  be 
licensed  at  will  to  expose  children  to  the  ravages  of  a  fearful  sickness 
and  the  risk  of  death,  and,  helpless  though  they  are,  it  is  by  Act 
of  Parliament  decreed  that  no  hand  shall  be  held  up  to  save  them. 
Whatever  the  political  advantages,  this  appears  to  be  a  heavy 
responsibility  for  a  Government  to  bind  upon  its  shoulders, 
especially,  as  I  gather  from  the  reports  and  the  speeches,  as 
together  with  95  per  cent,  or  more  of  those  who  constitute  the 
present  House  of  Commons,  every  member  of  the  Committee  is 
a  firm  believer  in  vaccination,  and  knows  well  what  may  happen 
to  those  who  cease  to  vaccinate.     O  Liberty  !  what  things 

It  seems  a  pity  that  the  leaders  of  the  anti-vaccination  party, 
who,  no  doubt,  are  very  honest  in  their  faith,  and  therefore  can 
scarcely  be  blamed  for  endeavouring  to  enforce  it,  cannot,  as  I  have 
done,  when  a  small-pox  epidemic  is  raging  travel  in  foreign  parts 
where  that  prophylactic  is  unknown  or  little  practised.  I  think 
that  they  would  come  back  with  their  views  much  modified.  At 
present  they  think  little  of  the  disease  because  they  have  scarcely 
seen  it  at  its  dreadful  work.  What  they  lack  is  imagination. 
Well,  I  have  heard  that  Jenner  prophesied  that  it  would  be  so. 

As  I  am  discussing  the   subject,  here  is  an  object-lesson  in 


JULY  281 

small-pox  which  I  submit  to  the  consideration  of  these  crusaders. 
The  tale  reaches  me  from  far  Venezuela,  and  I  believe  the  facts  to 
be  accurately  stated,  although  I  cannot  guarantee  the  details,  which 
I  have  no  opportunity  of  verifying.  In  the  course  of  a  recent 
epidemic  the  small-pox  struck  the  unvaccinated,  or  very  slightly 
vaccinated,  town  of  Valencia,  whereof  the  population  is  estimated 
at  35,000.  Out  of  this  population,  speaking  roughly,  8,000  were 
treated  at  the  small-pox  hospitals,  about  4,000  of  whom  died. 
These  numbers,  however,  do  not  include  those  treated  in  private 
houses,  who  were  many.  Also  everyone  who  could  escape  from  the 
place  did  so,  till  at  length  it  became  as  a  city  of  the  dead ;  so  that 
the  percentage  of  cases  to  population  must  have  been  much  larger 
than  the  figures  quoted  above  would  suggest,  especially  as  no 
precautionary  measures  were  taken,  at  any  rate  before  the  out- 
break. By  this  time  the  authorities  at  the  capital,  Caracas,  had 
become  alarmed,  and  set  to  work  to  do  their  best  to  enforce  con- 
pulsory  vaccination  of  its  inhabitants.  In  due  course  the  plague 
fell  upon  that  city  also,  which  has  a  population  estimated  at  80,000, 
as  against  35,000  at  Valencia.  Here,  however,  after  the  com- 
pulsory vaccination,  the  results  were  very  different,  for  (not 
counting  the  cases  treated  in  private  houses,  for  which  no  figures 
are  available)  the  patients  numbered  only  about  400,  a  curious  con- 
trast to  the  8,000  reported  at  Valencia.  As  the  hygienic  condi- 
tions of  the  two  towns  are  said  to  be  practically  the  same,  these 
figures  seem  to  be  remarkable.^ 

I  have  been  very  much  amused  to-day  watching  the  behaviour 
of  a  game-cock  which,  for  dynastic  reasons,  has  been  separated 
from  his  harem  and  removed  out  of  the  Horse-yard  Buildings  to  All 

'  It  is  right  to  add  that  in  an  article  printed  in  a  London  journal  of  anti- 
vaccination  views,  to  which  the  above  passage  provides  a  text,  it  is  stated  that 
according  to  a  pamphlet  published  at  Valencia  by  Pedro  Izaquirre,  the  record 
in  the  epidemic  of  1898  amounts  to  5,221  cases,  with  1,515  deaths  at  Valencia. 
I  know  not  for  certain  which  set  of  figures  is  actually  or  approximately  cor- 
rect ;  but  on  the  lower  basis  even  a  percentage  of  about  29  per  cent,  seems  suffi- 
ciently alarming, 
June  1899. 


282  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Hallows  Farm.  Last  night  he  was  carried  off,  and  this  morning 
Hood  set  him  at  liberty,  whereon  he  departed  towards  home 
literally  ventre-a-terre.  Apparently,  however,  he  could  not  find 
his  way  there,  for  afterwards  I  discovered  him  in  the  Home  Farm 
stackyard  trying  to  attract  to  himself  a  hen  of  light  and  wandering 
mind.  This  he  did  by  scratching  in  the  dust  and  making 
pretence  that  he  had  found  something  particularly  nice  to  eat. 
I  know  that  it  was  a  pretence,  for  from  where  I  stood  I  could 
see  that  there  was  nothing  at  all,  although  he  pecked  violently  and 
pretended  to  swallow,  calling  all  the  while.  Finally  the  light- 
minded  hen  was  attracted,  and  came  up  to  see  what  could  be  got, 
although  with  doubts,  for  the  lawful  rooster,  a  Dorking,  was 
watching  these  proceedings  from  a  distance  with  a  threatening 
and  lurid  eye.  Her  disgust  when  she  found  that  there  was 
naught  was  very  comic,  and  away  she  marched.  This  evening  I 
found  that  poor  divorced  cock  roosting  quite  alone  in  the  exact 
centre  of  a  large  hen-house,  which  the  fowls  do  not  use  during 
summer,  as  they  seem  to  prefer  to  sleep  in  the  trees.  I  suppose 
that  sooner  or  later  there  will  be  a  battle,  but,  oddly  enough,  the 
game-cock  does  not  seem  to  seek  the  encounter. 

To-day  two  of  the  little  steers  at  Bedingham  were  sold  to  the 
butcher  for  27/.  the  pair.  I  estimate — 'lay  '  is  the  local  term — 
their  weight  when  cleaned  at  about  thirty-five  stone,  but  I  suppose 
that  the  butcher  thinks  that  they  will  weigh  more,  as  75-.  a  stone 
is  the  average  price  for  prime  beef.  These  young  things — they 
are  under  two  years  old — make  the  best  and  most  saleable  beef, 
and  perhaps  for  this  reason  he  may  be  willing  to  give  a  little  more 
for  them.  The  day  of  heavy  three-  and  four-year-old  cattle,  at 
any  rate  in  this  neighbourhood,  is  gone  by,  and  as  a  rule  the 
price  they  bring  does  not  compensate  the  grazier  for  the  extra 
expense  of  their  keep  for  so  long  a  period  of  time. 

July  21. — To-day  Buck  has  been  at  work  thatching  the  haystack 
in  the  Buildings  stackyard,  with  the  assistance  of  young  Fair- 
head. 


JULY  283 

This  is  the  process.  A  quantity  of  straw  is  placed  in  a  heap  and 
soaked  with  buckets  of  water  to  soften  it ;  otherwise  it  would  not 
'  lie.'  Buck,  seated  close  by,  draws  from  a  bundle,  which  for  the 
last  few  days  has  been  *  tempering '  in  a  pond,  some  of  the  broaches 
that  Rough  Jimmy  split  a  few  months  ago.  These  he  sharpens  at 
either  end,  and  then,  holding  the  broach  in  both  hands,  wrings  it 
in  the  centre  to  make  it  pliable.  When  the  broaches  are  prepared, 
he  and  his  assistant  go  to  a  heap  of  coarse  hay  which  is  handy. 
Here  Fairhead  fixes  a  wisp  of  the  hay  on  to  an  instrument  called 
a  bond  crank,  that  is,  a  bent  iron  with  a  hook  at  the  end  of  it, 
and  two  hand  pieces  of  elder  wood,  so  arranged  that  by  holding 
one  in  the  left  hand  and  turning  the  other  with  the  right  the 
hook  revolves  and  twists  the  hay  into  a  long  grass  rope  or  bond 
as  it  is  deftly  drawn  from  the  heap  by  Buck.  These  bonds, 
when  of  sufficient  length.  Buck  winds  into  a  rough  spool  with  a 
broach  for  the  centre  of  it,  much  as  a  fishing  line  is  wound  on  to  a 
stick. 

When  enough  of  these  spools  are  prepared  he  mounts  the 
tall  ladder  that  is  laid  against  the  stack,  and  Fairhead  brings  him 
a  bundle  of  straw  fastened  with  a  rope,  which  bundle  is  secured 
to  the  side  of  the  stack  by  means  of  broaches,  whereon  it 
rests.  Dragging  out  handfuls  of  straw  from  the  bundle,  he  lays 
these  neatly  on  the  slope,  tucking  them  in  where  necessary  and 
drawing  them  smooth  with  an  instrument  called  a  thatching 
comb.  Then  he  takes  one  of  the  bond-spools  and,  loosing  the 
end  of  it,  lays  the  bond  across  the  straw,  fastening  it  in  place  by 
the  doubled  up  broaches,  which,  in  shape  and  purpose,  resemble 
rough  hairpins,  driving  them  home  into  the  stack  by  means  of  a 
thatching  mallet.  For  this  covering  up  of  haystacks  two  lines  of 
bonds  are  generally  used,  with  others,  which  are  arranged  in  a 
kind  of  dog-tooth  pattern  at  the  ends  of  the  stack. 

Buck  and  his  assistant,  beginning  to  work  at  this  stack,  which 
may  contain  eighteen  or  twenty  tons  of  hay,  after  breakfast,  had 
finished  it  by  evening.  For  quick  thatching,  however,  three 
hands  arc  required  :  one  to  make  ready  the  bonds,  broaches,  &c., 


284  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

one  to  carry  the  bundles  of  straw  up  the  ladder,  and  one  to  lay 
and  fasten  them. 

If,  as  in  the  present  case,  the  hay  is  very  dense  and  hard,  the 
thatching  takes  a  little  more  time,  since  then  it  is  not  easy  to  force 
the  broaches  home  into  the  body  of  the  stack. 

Ju/y  23. — Yesterday  I  found  Buck  putting  in  a  spare  hour 
after  he  had  finished  with  the  cows,  hoeing  beet  on  All  Hallows 
.field.  No.  29.  Here  the  ground  is  so  hard  that  in  places  the 
swelling  bulbs  of  the  beet  have  actually  split  the  soil  about  them. 
Buck,  who,  as  I  have  said  before,  is  a  critic,  is  of  opinion  that  this 
hardness  is  chiefly  caused  by  the  land  having  been  rolled  for 
drilling  when  too  wet.  I  think,  however,  that  the  drought  has  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  it.  I  find  that  my  half-dozen  little  beets, 
which  I  transplanted  in  this  field,  are  looking  green  and  flourish- 
ing, but  I  must  admit  that  they  are  not  so  large  as  the  beet  which 
have  not  been  transplanted. 

About  three  in  the  afternoon  a  soft  shower  came  on,  which 
continued  at  intervals  until  10  o'clock  at  night.  Although  it  has 
stopped  the  hay-carting,  this  rain,  light  as  it  is,  is  most  welcome, 
as  the  young  swedes  and  white  turnips  are  beginning  to  suffer 
much  from  drought,  and  the  shorn  pastures  sadly  need  refresh- 
ment to  start  them  into  growth  again.  Unless  we  have  some  wet 
before  harvest  I  fear  that  the  aftermath  and  the  second  crop  on 
the  ollands  will  be  but  scanty." 

To-day  is  stormy,  but  without  rain.  Whitrup  has  been  at 
work  with  the  flat  hoe,  cleaning  the  beet  on  No.  23.  Going  to 
the  field  after  he  left  it,  I  found  that  this  instrument  had 
worked  considerable  havoc  to  the  roots  as  well  as  to  the  weeds,  for 
a  great  many  beautiful  beet  were  broken  off  and  destroyed. 
Damage  of  this  sort  is  difficult  to  avoid,  especially  if  the  ground 
is  hard,  as  the  leaves  of  the  beet  catch  in  the  hoe  and  the  roots 
are  snapped  in  an  instant.  In  this  case  it  is  wise  to  take  the 
wrench  and  set  the  knives  a  little  closer  together,  since  it  is 
better  that  a  few    weeds    should    escape    than    that   good    beet 


JULY  285 

should  be  destroyed,  especially  in  a  year  when  the  plant  is  not 
too  thick. 

After  many  doubts  Hood  and  I  have  come  to  the  decision  that 
we  had  best  buy  the  reaper.  To  this  there  are  two  alternatives : 
to  do  without  a  machine  altogether  and  trust  to  the  old-fashioned 
scythe,  that  is  very  slow  where  the  extent  of  ground  to  be  dealt 
with  is  considerable,  especially  in  this  uncertain  climate,  which 
may  set  in  wet  at  any  time.  The  other  is  to  hire  a  machine,  as 
we  did  once  before.  Now,  the  rent  of  a  reaper  would  not  be  less 
than  5/.,  and  it  may  be  hazarded  that  the  instrument  would  be  of 
bad  make  and  quality,  as  people  do  not  buy  good  machines  to  let 
out  to  anybody  who  asks  for  them.  Therefore,  especially  when  the 
risks  of  breakage  and  consequent  delay,  which  are  many  in  the  case 
of  such  a  machine,  are  taken  into  consideration,  it  seems  scarcely 
worth  while  to  hire  at  a  fifth  of  the  price  of  a  new  instrument. 

This  year  we  propose  to  make  our  agreement  with  the  men 
for  the  harvest.  This  means  that,  allowing  an  approximate  area 
of  twelve  acres  of  corn  crop  per  head  to  be  cut,  carried,  stacked, 
and  thatched,  each  man  will  receive  about  7/.  for  the  work.  In 
fact  it  is  piece  work,  and  the  sooner  the  hands  are  through  with 
it  and  put  their  7/.  into  their  pockets,  the  sooner  they  will  be  able 
to  get  back  to  labour  at  their  ordinary  wage.  It  should  be  added 
that,  in  return  for  the  use  of  the  reaper,  which,  of  course,  saves 
time  and  lessens  their  toil  considerably,  they  will  be  expected  to 
undertake  a  certain  amount  of  root  cleaning  when  necessary. 
The  alternative  plan — a  very  bad  one  in  my  opinion,  which  we 
adopted  last  year — is  that  the  men  should  be  paid  7/.  for  the 
month.  Under  this  system,  if  they  finished  the  harvest  under 
a  month,  they  would  have  to  return  to  their  ordinary  work  for 
such  days  as  remained  without  wage,  their  labour  having  been 
purchased  for  the  full  time.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  harvest  is 
prolonged  beyond  a  month,  they  are  expected  to  complete  it  at  the 
ordinary  rate  of  wage.  Under  these  circumstances,  as  Mr.  Hodge 
is  human,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  he  will  get  on  quite 
so  quickly  as  he  does  when  he  is  paid  by  the  piece.     Indeed,  I 


286  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

believe  that  there  are  many  instances  upon  record  of  things  being 
so  nicely  timed  that  the  harvest  is  finished  on  the  evening  of  the 
last  day  of  the  appointed  month. 

At  the  farmhouse  of  a  neighbour  this  afternoon  I  saw  two 
little  boys,  who  told  me  that  they  are  the  sons  of  a  pastry-cook  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  Edgware  Road.  They  are  two  of  about 
a  dozen  children  which  have  been  sent  by  some  charity  to  be 
boarded  out  for  a  fortnight  in  the  village  at  a  price  of  55".  a  week 
per  head.  I  can  imagine  no  truer  kindness  than  that  of  those 
good  people  who  thus  enable  these  poor  city-bred  children  to 
enjoy  a  fortnight  of  pure  country  air,  to  the  great  benefit  of  their 
minds  and  bodies.  I  hope  that  this  work  may  prosper  and  increase, 
as  there  is  unlimited  room  for  the  accommodation  of  such  children, 
and  many  respectable  village  women  would  be  only  too  glad  to 
take  them  in  and  feed  them  well  for  55-.  a  week. 

July  25. — This  afternoon,  in  walking  over  the  Thwaite  field, 
No.  28,  to  look  at  the  carrots  and  young  swedes,  which  are  suffer- 
ing from  drought,  I  saw  a  curious  thing.  Over  the  field,  skimming 
here,  there,  and  everywhere  in  the  air,  but  within  an  area  of  a 
well  defined  circuit,  were  two  or  three  hundreds  of  swallows  and 
martins,  all, of  them  busy  in  the  ceaseless  consumption  of  some 
invisible  insects.  I  suppose  that  the  *  fly '  was  in  the  air,  and 
that  this  was  a  '  rise  '  of  swallows  collected  to  take  advantage  of 
it.  As  they  were  hawking  within  so  limited  a  space,  it  would  seem 
to  show  that  these  myriads  of  tiny  insects  on  which  they  feed  pass 
from  place  to  place  in  swarms. 

July  31. — On  Wednesday  we  began  carting  the  hay  from 
Baker's  Marsh,  No.  46.  It  is  a  very  good  crop,  a  ton  and  a  half 
an  acre,  I  should  say.  I  believe  that  shutting  this  field  down  so 
late  has,  in  fact,  improved  the  turf,  as  it  gave  the  fine  grasses  time 
to  get  up  before  they  were  overshadowed  by  the  coarser-growing 
sorts.  Before  we  began  to  cart  some  of  the  men  were  employed 
fixing  the  galvanized  iron  roofs  on  to  two  of  the  haystacks  in  the 


JULY  287 

home  yard.  I'hese  roofs,  although  not  ornamental  (what,  I  wonder, 
would  our  forefathers  have  said  had  they  been  asked  to  cover 
their  stacks  with  tin  ?),  are  exceedingly  useful.  I  bought  them 
four  or  five  years  ago,  in  a  season  when,  owing  to  the  drought,  we 
had  literally  no  straw  left  with  which  to  thatch,  at  a  cost,  if  I  re- 
member rightly,  of  about  4/.  10^.  each.  Since  then  they  have 
been  in  use  every  year,  and  the  hay  protected  by  them  has  in- 
variably been  found  to  be  as  sweet  and  good  immediately  under 
the  iron  as  in  any  other  part  of  the  stack.  The  roofs  themselves 
consist  of  an  iron  ridge  with  grooves,  to  which  are  hung  the 
galvanized  sheets.  When  the  stack  has  sufficiently  settled,  these 
sheets  are  fastened  to  the  hay  by  long  corkscrew-shaped  pins, 
which,  if  properly  driven  home,  secure  them  against  any  wind, 
although  in  the  course  of  years  the  iron  is  apt  to  get  torn  at  the 
eyelet-holes  and  corners.  One  disadvantage  of  these  roofs  is 
that  the  stacks  must  be  built  to  fit  them,  and  another  that  they 
undoubtedly  look  ugly  in  a  faimyard,  although  this  fault  might 
be  mitigated  by  painting  them  straw-colour.  This  I  have  always 
intended  to  do,  but  as  yet  we  have  never  found  time  to  be  aesthetic. 
At  Bedingham  on  Wednesday  afternoon  I  found  all  the  hay 
up,  though  a  few  loads  of  it  were  still  standing  upon  the  carts  and 
waggons  ready  to  top  up  the  last  stack  when  it  settles.  According  to 
my  measurements,  which  may  be  inaccurate,  I  think  that  we  have 
thirty -four  or  thirty-five  tons  of  excellent  hay  on  the  two  Bedingham 
stacks,  a  good  crop  off  a  farm  of  a  hundred  acres  on  which  no 
clover  layer  has  been  grown  this  season.  But  throughout  the 
country  the  cut  of  grass  is  one  of  the  largest  that  has  been 
secured  for  many  years,  so  hay  will  be  cheap.  Indeed,  I  doubt 
whether  valuers  will  lay  it  at  much  more  than  2/.  the  ton  on  the 
stack.  This,  however,  will  not  hurt  farmers  who  have  any 
to  spare,  and  can  afford  to  save  it.  Hay,  if  re-thatched,  will  keep 
five  or  six  years,  and  perhaps  before  that  time  has  come  and  gone 
it  may  fetch  nearer  7/.  than  2/.  the  ton.  Here,  alas  !  we  have  so 
many  mouths  to  feed  that  even  in  plentiful  seasons  forage  seems  to 
melt  away  almost  to  the  last  stalk ;  I  doubt  if  at  the  present 


288  A  FA  RATER'S    YEAR 

moment  we  have  more  than  a  truss  or  so  of  the  crop  of  1897  left 
upon  the  place. 

Every  farmer  must  be  thankful  that  this,  the  first  harvest  of 
the  year,  has  been  secured  in  plenty,  and,  on  the  whole,  in  such 
good  order.  Here,  at  the  beginning  of  haysel,  we  had  one  field 
of  layer,  No.  45,  badly  damaged  by  the  wet,  and  more  than 
half  of  the  stuff  on  Baker's  Marsh  is  still  out,  but  all  the 
rest  is  safe  and  snug  in  the  ricks — and  to  the  farmer's  eye 
hay  always  looks  best  upon  a  stack.  I  think  that  here  at  Ditching- 
ham,  so  nearly  as  I  can  estimate,  we  must  have  carried  about  a 
hundred  tons. 

On  my  way  back  from  Bedingham  I  went  to  look  at  some 
yearling  cattle  belonging  to  a  tradesman  in  Bungay,  who  has  taken 
them  over  for  a  debt,  and  wishes  to  dispose  of  them  at  the  price 
tKey  were  valued  at  to  him,  namely,  61.  10s.  each.  About  six  of 
these  I  found  to  be  fair-looking  animals,  not  polled,  but '  slug- 
horned,'  that  is,  with  horns  about  the  size  and  shape  of  a  large 
sausage.  On  the  whole  they  are  a  coarse-bred  lot,  and  I  think 
that  61.  each  would  be  plenty  to  pay  for  them  ;  indeed,  I  do  not 
know  that  they  will  suit  us  at  all.  Our  difficulty  here  is  to  buy 
well-bred  things.  It  would  seem  that  anything  with  four  legs  and 
a  tail  is  good  enough  for  a  Norfolk  farmer  to  breed  from.  He 
will  not  understand  that  good  blood  means  good  beef,  and,  what 
is  more,  quickly  grown  beef. 

The  morning  of  the  28th  was  sunless,  but  we  managed  to  draw 
up  two  loads  of  hay  from  Baker's  Marsh.  Just  as  the  men  were 
returning  there  with  the  carts  after  dinner,  a  slight  shower  came 
on,  which  stopped  them,  but  they  were  able  to  get  some  of  the 
made  hay  into  cock.  About  half-past  five  it  came  on  to  rain  in 
good  earnest — a  welcome  sight  indeed  to  farmers  who  have  been 
watching  the  earth  grow  harder  day  by  day,  while  the  mangold 
remained  almost  at  a  standstill  and  the  young  swedes  languished 
and  turned  blue  and  lousy.  When  the  rain  began  to  be  heavy  I 
walked  round  the  farm,  visiting  some  of  the  root-fields.  I  know 
of  no   more  pleasant  experience  after  a  long  period  of  drought 


JUL  V  289 

than  to  stand  in  such  a  field  watching  the  dry  earth  suck  up 
the  bounteous  downpour,  and  the  green  things  gather  life  and 
increase  as  they  draw  it  into  their  tissues.  What  smell  is  there 
half  so  good  as  the  smell  of  the  soil  new-washed  by  rain  ?  People 
who  only  go  out  walking  in  fine  weather  miss  much ;  the  best 
times  to  walk,  in  my  opinion,  are  in  the  snow,  the  wet,  and  the 
storm. 

Friday  the  29th  was  cold  and  overcast,  with  occasional  light 
showers  driven  by  a  high  north-east  wind.  On  the  farm  we  took 
advantage  of  the  welcome  wet  to  plough  the  headlands  and  drill 
maize  on  that  part  of  the  vetch  field,  No.  21,  which  was  fed  off 
with  sheep.  Of  course  it  is  late  to  sow  this  crop  even  for  the 
only  purpose  to  which  we  put  it — green  fodder  ;  but  the  ground 
has  been  so  hard  that  we  have  been  unable  to  get  it  in  before.  If 
we  have  a  warm  August  and  September,  however,  which  are  surely 
due  to  us  after  so  cold  a  summer,  I  hope  that  it  will  still  furnish 
a  good  cut  for  the  cows  in  autumn.  There  are  few  fodders  that 
they  like  better  than  the  stalks  of  this  Indian  corn  after  they 
have  gone  through  the  cutter.  They  are  an  excellent  milk- 
producing  food,  and,  as  I  have  learned  in  Africa,  horses  will  grow 
fat  upon  them. 

Yesterday  we  were  sowing  mustard  broadcast  and  drilling  white 
turnips  upon  the  headlands,  which  have  been  ploughed  and 
harrowed  to  receive  them.  Even  if  they  never  grow  very  large, 
these  headland  white  turnips  make  a  welcome  bite  for  the  sheep 
in  autumn,  while  the  mustard  is  always  useful,  especially  to  give  a 
flavour  to  chaff,  or  to  be  fed  off  by  sheep. 

At  Bedingham  I  find  that  in  one  of  the  fields.  No.  6,  the 
wheat,  which  here  is  very  tall  and  strong,  is  in  places  laid  by 
the  wind  and  rain.  The  white  turnips  which  were  drilled  there 
when  the  swedes  failed  are  a  first-rate  plant.  Even  if  no  more 
rain  falls  for  another  month  or  so  I  think  that  they  should  now 
make  a  crop,  for  this  stiff  Bedingham  clay  holds  the  moisture, 
and  here  the  saying  that  '  drought  never  yet  made  dearth '  is 
certainly  true. 

U 


290  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

The  reader  may  remember  my  entries  about  the  swallows 
that  build  in  the  porch.  After  the  adventures  of  one  of  them 
in  this  house  at  night  they  sat,  and  in  due  course  produced 
one  young  bird  only,  which  has  now  been  reared  to  maturity  and 
flown.  Thinking  that  the  coldness  of  the  season  had  caused  the 
remaining  eggs  to  be  unfertile,  as  chanced  with  all  of  them  two 
years  ago,  I  examined  the  nest  in  order  to  remove  the  rotten 
eggs,  so  that,  if  the  birds  wished,  they  could  again  make  use 
of  it.  It  was  quite  empty.  The  eggs  had  not  been  thrown  out  of  the 
nest,  for,  if  so,  they  would  have  lodged  upon  the  board  underneath 
it ;  so  it  is  clear  either  that  the  swallows  have  carried  them 
right  away,  or  that  only  one  egg  was  laid.  I  believe  the  latter 
to  be  the  explanation.  Perhaps  it  was  the  hen  bird  which  passed 
the  night  in  the  house.  If  so,  would  it  not  be  possible  that  the 
shock  given  to  its  system  by  fright  may  have  prevented  it  from 
producing  more  than  one  egg?  Perhaps  some  naturalist  can 
answer  the  question. 

To-day  is  beautiful,  by  far  the  finest  which  we  have  yet 
experienced  this  summer.  In  the  afternoon  I  rode  over  to  Denton, 
a  village  some  six  miles  away,  where  there  is  a  small  farm  belong- 
ing to  this  property.  The  house  on  it  is  ancient,  probably  early 
Tudor  ;  indeed,  some  very  beautiful  oak  panelling  that  I  re- 
moved from  it  to  this  place  can  scarcely  be  later  than  that  date. 
From  the  shape  of  the  portion  that  is  now  standing  I  imagine  it 
to  be  the  remains  of  a  larger  building,  of  which  parts  have  been 
pulled  down  as  it  fell  into  disrepair.  Such  fragments  of  houses 
are  common  about  here ;  indeed,  there  is  one  of  them  at  my  own 
gate  which  is  so  old  that  it  had  to  be  strapped  up  in  1613, 
as  is  proved  by  the  'anchors'  let  into  the  wall,  whereof  the 
faces  fashion  that  date  in  wrought  iron.  I  suppose  that  all 
these  dwellings  in  the  times  of  the  Plantagenets  and  the  Tudors 
were  the  homes  of  yeomen  who  owned  or  farmed  from  one  to 
three  hundred  acres  of  land.  Or,  possibly,  they  were  in  many 
cases  the  farmhouses  let  with  the  holdings.  That  tenant  farmers 
were  common  so  early  as  1560  we  learn  from  Thomas  Tusser's 


JUL  Y  291 

rhymes,  for  he  talks  of  the  taking  over  of  farms  at  Michaelmas  as 
a  familiar  thing  : 

At  Michaelmas  lightly  new  farmer  comes  in, 
New  Husbandry  force  th  him  new  to  begin  ; 
Old  farmer  still  taking  the  time  to  him  given, 
Makes  August  to  last  until  Michaelmas  even. 

Good  farm  and  well  stored,  good  housing  and  dry, 
Good  corn  and  good  dairy,  good  market  and  nigh  ; 
Good  shepherd,  good  tillman,  good  Jack  and  good  Jill, 
Make  husband  and  huswife  their  coffers  to  fill. 

Nor  does  the  country — he  farmed  in  Suffolk  and  at  East 
Dereham,  in  Norfolk — seem  to  have  been  so  lonely  as  might  be 
imagined,  for  he  talks  of  journeys  to  market,  and  of  the  visits  of 
chapmen  or  dealers.  Indeed,  I  believe  that  the  enormous  increase 
of  the  population  in  England  has  taken  place  in  the  towns  only, 
and  that  the  country  was  almost  as  thickly  populated  in  the  times 
of  the  Henrys  as  it  is  to-day.  Thesizeandnumber  of  the  churches 
show  it,  as  do  the  death  entries  in  the  earlier  registers. 

This  ancient  Denton  farm  has  fitting  tenants  in  the  aged 
couple  who  occupy  it.  Their  name  is  Skinner,  and  they  are 
eighty,  or  over,  both  of  them,  but  still  hale  and  handsome ;  we 
discovered  them  sitting  in  the  quaint  porch  of  the  house  reading 
the  Bible,  as  old  folks  should  do  on  Sunday  afternoon.  They  have 
been  connected  with  this  property,  or  in  the  service  of  its  owners, 
all  their  lives ;  indeed,  the  old  man's  father  was  gardener  to  this 
house  and  died  here,  while  so  far  back  as  fifty  years  ago  he  himself 
was  steward  to  my  father-in-law.  Major  Margitson,  managing  for  him 
the  land  which  I  now  farm.  When  he  dies,  which  I  trust  may  not 
be  for  many  years,  there  will  vanish  a  fine  specimen  of  the  old 
stamp  of  tenant-farmer,  of  whom  so  few  remain  ;  one  who  loved 
his  land,  and  did  not  look  upon  the  landlord  as  his  natural  enemy. 

I  walked  over  the  farm  with  the  old  gentleman,  and  found  it 
cultivated  like  a  garden.  I  think  that  his  beans  and  beet  are  quite 
the  best  that  I  have  seen  this  year. 

u  2 


292  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 


AUGUST 

August  I. — To-day  the  weather  has  been  lovely,  which  is 
fortunate,  as  the  annual  Primrose  League  fete  of  the  Ditchingham 
Habitation  was  held  in  Ellingham  Park.  I  think  that  there  must 
have  been  quite  two  thousand  people  present,  all  of  whom  seemed 
to  enjoy  themselves  very  much  wandering  about  on  the  green 
grass  and  under  the  beautiful  trees.  For  amusements  there  were 
open-air  theatricals,  swing  boats,  cocoanut  shies,  and  that  most 
fascinating  of  sports,  a  shooting  gallery,  where  the  skilful  may 
break  glass  balls  and  knock  over  tin  animals,  supplemented  of 
course  by  a  liberal  tea  and  dancing  in  the  evening.  Then  there 
were  the  speeches,  which,  in  my  opinion,  are  the  least  popular 
part  of  the  entertainment,  although,  together  with  a  fair  proportion 
of  the  male  sex,  a  large  number  of  ladies  and  their  offspring 
listened  to  them  with  rapt  attention,  and  were,  I  trust,  duly  in- 
structed upon  Imperial  matters.  I  forget  who  invented  the 
Primrose  League,  but  he  was  certainly  a  political  genius,  who  had 
mastered  the  great  fact  that  the  majority  of  people  detest  unmiti- 
gated politics  and  love  entertainments  and  threepenny  teas,  and 
that,  of  those  who  enjoy  the  entertainments  and  absorb  the  tea,  a 
proportion,  at  any  rate,  will  reward  the  party  which  provides  them 
with  their  support.  The  affair  was  very  well  managed  and  a  great 
success,  but  shouting  patriotic  sentiments  from  a  waggon  is  tiring 
to  the  throat.  At  last  year's  festivity,  however,  I  was  much  more 
arduously  employed,  for  the  advertised  speaker  having  telegraphed 
suddenly  to  say  that  *  a  toothache '  prevented  him  from  attending, 
I  was  called  upon  to  fill  his  place.  For  me  that  meant  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  of  unpremeditated  and  al-fresco  oratory. 


AUGUST  293 

To-day  we  have  finished  carting  the  hay  from  Baker's  Marsh, 
No.  46;  also  I  sold  two  young  red-poll  heifers  to  a  clergyman 
in  this  neighbourhood  for  10/.  apiece.  Considering  how  they 
are  bred  it  is  not  a  high  price,  but  of  course  more  than  they 
would  fetch  upon  the  market  and  more  than  they  are  worth  to 
keep  for  fatting  purposes.  I  am  coming  rapidly  to  the  conclusion, 
however,  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  consign  so  many  of  these  pedigree 
animals  to  the  butcher.  They  have  some  of  the  best  blood  in 
East  Anglia  in  their  veins,  and  ought  to  be  worth  more  to  sell  for 
stock  purposes,  although,  of  course,  it  is  hard  for  the  small  breeder 
like  myself  to  compete  with  the  large  and  well-advertised  herds. 

August  2. — To-day  we  are  hoeing  root  upon  the  farm,  of 
which  there  is  a  deal  to  be  got  through  before  harvest  begins.  On 
my  way  back  from  the  root  field  I  went  to  look  at  the  pease  on 
No.  37,  and  found  them  absolutely  scarlet  with  red-weed  or  poppies, 
to  which  this  land  is  very  liable.  If  possible  we  propose  to  cut 
them  a  little  green,  so  as  to  kill  the  thistles  and  poppies  before 
they  shed  their  seed  abroad. 

I  inspected  also  the  carrots  on  the  Thwaite  field.  No.  28,  to 
find  that  the  rabbits  are  doing  them  much  damage.  These 
pestilent  vermin,  which  are  unusually  numerous  this  year,  for  they 
bred  all  the  winter  through,  come  at  night  and  bite  out  the 
crowns,  an  injury  from  which  the  plants  never  quite  recover. 
Although  many  people  have  grumbled  at  it,  certainly  the  Hares 
and  Rabbits  Bill  has  proved  a  most  useful  measure,  that  is,  to 
those  who  avail  themselves  honestly  of  its  provisions  and  do  not 
make  it  an  excuse  for  poaching.  As.  I  know  from  bitter  experience, 
there  is  nothing  more  maddening  to  a  farmer  than  to  see  his 
crops  injured,  or  perhaps  destroyed,  by  these  mischievous  brutes, 
which,  if  there  should  chance  to  be  any  coverts  or  sandy  banks  in 
the  neighbourhood,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  keep  under,  however 
much  one  may  shoot,  snare,  or  trap.  A  single  nest  of  them  in  a 
barley  field  will  destroy  the  yield  of  quite  a  large  area  of  the  corn  ; 
indeed,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  they  do  even  more  damage  to 


294  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

growing  corn  than  to  root  crops.  Perhaps,  however,  they  are  most 
troublesome  in  the  case  of  young  trees,  for,  wire  these  in  as  one 
will,  they  manage  to  burrow  beneath  the  fence  and  to  kill  the 
saplings  by  gnawing  the  sweet  bark  off  their  stems. 

August  6. — Last  Wednesday  Hood  went  to  Harleston  market, 
which  is  a  very  good  one,  in  the  hope  of  picking  up  some  young 
home-bred  beasts  at  a  moderate  figure.  This  he  did  not  succeed 
in  doing,  but  he  reports  that  fat  cattle  were  selling  as  low  as  six 
shillings  a  stone.  This  is  an  utterly  unremunerative  price,  caused 
by  the  plentiful  root-crop  of  last  year ;  but  now  the  beet  is  done, 
and  poor  farmers  have  to  empty  their  yards  and  take  what 
they  can  get.  Yesterday  and  the  day  before  we  were  horse- 
and  hand-hoeing  the  root,  and  to-day,  which  is  dull  with  heavy 
showers  of  rain,  we  are  carting  house  coal  as  well.  To-day,  also,  we 
have  finally  arranged  with  the  men  for  the  forthcoming  harvest. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  this  can  be  done  on  two  systems  : 
namely,  the  hands  can  agree  for  a  month,  after  which,  should  the 
in-gathering  take  longer,  they  must  complete  it  at  their  ordinary 
wage  ;  or  they  can  agree  for  '  the  harvest,'  receiving  a  lump  sum, 
be  it  long  or  short.  Under  this  arrangement,  of  course,  it  is  to 
their  interest  to  get  through  their  task  at  the  greatest  possible 
rate  of  speed,  since  every  day  saved  is  a  day  upon  which  they  can 
be  earning  wage  over  and  above  the  stipulated  sum.  It  is 
perfectly  marvellous  how  hard  men  will  labour  under  this  system 
of  piece-work.  At  Ditchingham  this  year  we  have  about  ninety- 
one  acres  of  corn  to  be  gathered  by  seven  men,  each  man  receiving 
7/.  loj".,  including  the  hiring  shilling  to  be  paid  according  to 
ancient  custom.  Query — Is  this  hiring  shilling  the  origin  of  the 
queen's  shilling  formerly  given  to  a  recruit  on  his  enlistment  ? 
For  this  the  hands  are  tc  do  all  that  is  necessary,  that  is,  to  cut,  to- 
carry,  to  stack,  to  trim,  &c.,  thatching  alone  excepted.  It  will  be 
seen  that  the  average  area  to  each  man  is  thirteen  acres,  which  is 
two  above  what  is  usual.  This  is  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  I 
intend  to  purchase  the  reaper,  which  will  be  thrown  into  the  harvest 


AUGUST  295 

for  the  men  to  use  wherever  corn  can  be  cut  with  it  to  advantage. 
Of  course  such  a  machine  means  an  enormous  saving  of  labour, 
but  it  cannot  always  be  set  to  work,  as  it  will  not  deal  satisfactorily 
with  laid  and  twisted  corn. 

At  Bedingham  we  have  thirty-five  acres  of  corn  to  be  dealt 
with  by  three  men  and  one  boy,  each  man  receiving  7/.,  and  the 
boy  2/.  loi".  This  allows  ten  acres  for  each  man,  and  five  acres 
for  the  boy.  The  hands,  who  do  everything  except  thatch  the 
stacks,  also  undertake  to  go  once  through  the  piece  of  white 
turnips  on  No.  18  with  the  hand-hoe.  It  will  be  observed  that 
their  rate  of  money  is  ten  shillings  less  than  the  wage  to  be  paid 
upon  this  farm,  the  reason  being  that,  although  they  have  no  reaper 
to  help  them,  the  area  to  be  dealt  with  by  their  labour  is  less. 

Here  at  Ditchingham  the  cowman.  Buck,  and  a  boy  stand 
out  of  the  harvest  and  are  paid  no  extra  money,  although  Buck 
will  have  to  undertake  the  thatching  of  the  stacks.  In  com- 
pensation, however,  for  his  receiving  no  harvest  money  he  is 
given  a  cottage  valued  at  4/.  a  year  rent  free.  In  addition  to  his 
thatching  he  and  Hood  between  them  will  have  to  manage  the 
milking  of  the  cows  and  to  take  care  of  the  cattle. 

Eleven  is  the  average  number  of  acres  which  an  able-bodied 
man  is  supposed  to  be  able  to  harvest.  That  is  the  extent 
arranged  for  with  his  labourers  by  a  neighbouring  farmer  in  this 
village.  These  men,  however,  are  to  receive  7/.  ^s.  each,  and 
their  bargain  includes  the  thatching  of  the  stacks.  In  this  case 
there  is  no  reaper  to  assist  them,  and  the  straw  of  his  crops  is 
supposed  to  be  stouter  than  mine,  an  important  item  in  reckoning 
up  the  amount  of  work  to  be  done. 

This  afternoon  I  went  to  examine  the  reaper  which  I  have 
purchased,  that  is  being  put  together  at  the  foundry  in  Bungay. 
It  is  an  American  machine,  very  light,  but  strong  in  make,  and 
seems  well  fitted  for  our  work. 

In  a  greenhouse  in  this  garden  I  have  two  tame  toads,  named 
Martha  and  Jane  respectively.  Also  there  is  a  tiny  one  called 
Babette,  but  she  can  hardly  be  counted,  as  she  is  so  small  and 


296  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

seldom  on  view.  (Martha,  there  is  reason  to  fear,  has  recently 
eaten  Babette.) 

These  toads  are  strange  and  interesting  creatures,  differing 
much  from  each  other  in  appearance  and  character.  Martha  is 
stout  and  dark-coloured,  a  bold-natured  toad  of  friendly  habit ; 
Jane,  on  the  other  hand,  is  pale  and  thin,  with  a  depressed  air 
which  suggests  resignation  born  of  long  experience  of  circum- 
stances over  which  she  has  no  control.  Some  of  this  depression 
may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  once,  entering  the  greenhouse  in  the 
twilight,  I  trod  upon  her  accidentally,  a  shock  from  which  she 
seems  never  to  have  recovered,  although,  owing  to  the  adaptive 
powers  of  toads,  beyond  a  slight  flattening  she  took  no  physical 
harm  from  an  adventure  which  must  have  been  painful.  Indeed, 
I  am  not  sure  that  of  the  two  of  us  I  did  not  suffer  most,  for  I 
know  of  few  things  more  upsetting  than  the  feel  of  a  fat  toad 
beneath  one's  foot.  Anyhow,  since  that  day  Jane  has  looked 
reproachful  and  never  quite  trusted  me. 

These  toads  I  feed  with  lobworms,  or  sometimes  with  wood- 
lice  and  centipedes  taken  from  traps  made  of  hollowed-out 
potatoes,  which  are  set  among  the  flowerpots  to  attract  such 
creatures.  In  the  latter  case  the  insects  must  be  thrown  before 
the  toad,  which  never  seems  to  see  them  until  they  begin  to  run, 
although,  its  ears  being  quick,  it  can  sometimes  hear  them  as  they 
move  along  the  floor  behind  it. 

When  a  toad  catches  sight  of  an  insect  its  attitude  of  profound 
repose  changes  to  one  of  extraordinary  and  alarming  animation.  Its 
swivel  eyes  seem  to  project  and  fix  themselves  upon  the  doomed 
creature  off  which  it  is  about  to  lunch ;  its  throat  begins  to 
palpitate  with  violence,  and  its  general  air  betrays  intense  and 
concentrated  interest.  Presently,  from  contemplation  it  proceeds 
to  action.  By  slow  but  purposeful  movements  of  its  crooked 
limbs  it  advances ;  pauses,  and  advances  again,  till  at  length  it 
reaches  a  position  which  it  considers  convenient.  Then,  just  as 
the  centipede  gains  a  sheltering  pebble,  a  long  pink  flash  seems 
to  proceed   from   the   head   of  the   toad.      That  is  its  tongue. 


AUGUST  297 

Another  instant  and  the  pink  thing  has  twisted  itself  round  the 
insect  and  retired  into  the  capacious  mouth,  and  there,  once  more 
wrapped  in  deep  peace  and  rest,  sits  the  toad,  its  eyes  turned  in 
pious  thankfulness  to  heaven,  or,  rather,  to  the  roof  of  the  green- 
house. The  other  day  even  I  saw  Martha  take  a  woodlouse  off 
her  own  head.  Mistaking  the  nature  of  its  foothold  the  insect 
had  been  so  unfortunate  as  to  run  up  her  back,  till,  becoming 
aware  of  the  tickling  of  its  little  feet,  Martha  guessed  the  unusual 
situation  and  acted  on  it  with  all  the  decision  of  the  great. 

If  the  observer  wishes  to  see  what  my  old  head  gardener  calls 
'the  beauty  of  the  thing,'  woodlice  and  centipedes  undoubtedly 
provide  the  best  show;  but  for  real  grim  earnest,  for  a  perfect 
microcosm  of  the  struggle  for  existence  in  which  somebody  has 
to  go  down,  the  spectacle  of  Martha  meeting  with  a  selected 
lobworm  is  to  be  recommended.  In  this  instance  she  sees  the 
thing  at  once,  for  it  is  long,  active,  and  shiny  (toads  will  not 
touch  anything  that  is  dead),  and  instantly  clears  for  action. 
Creeping  forward  with  a  dreadful  deliberation,  she  arches  her  neck 
over  the  worm,  considering  it  with  her  beady  eye.  Then,  as 
it  begins  to  take  refuge  beneath  the  shingle — for  worms  seem  to 
understand  that  toads  are  no  friends  to  them — Martha  pounces 
and  grips  it  by  the  middle.  Next  comes  a  long  strain,  like  that 
of  a  thrush  dragging  at  a  brandling  in  the  garden,  and  after  the 
strain,  the  struggle. 

Heavens  !  what  a  light  it  is  !  Magnify  the  size  of  the  com- 
batants by  five  hundred,  and  no  man  would  dare  to  stay  to  look 
at  it.  The  worm  writhes  and  rolls ;  Martha,  seated  on  her  bulging 
haunches,  beats  its  extremities  with  her  front  paws— cramming, 
pushing,  gulping,  and  lo  !  gradually  the  worm  seems  to  shorten. 
Shorter  it  grows,  and  shorter  yet.  It  is  vanishing  into  Martha's 
inside.  And  now  nothing  is  left  but  a  little  pink  tip  projecting 
from  the  corner  of  her  mouth,  in  appearance  not  unlike  that  of  a 
lighted  cigarette. 

The  tip  vanishes,  and  you  think  that  the  tragedy  is  over.  But 
no  ;  presently  there  is  a  convulsion,  followed  by  a  resurrection  as 


298  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

frantic  as  it  is  futile.  Again  the  war  is  waged — this  time  more 
feebly,  and  soon,  once  more  shrouded  in  holy  calm  as  in  a 
garment,  Martha  sits  smiling  at  the  roof  of  the  greenhouse, 
reflecting  probably  upon  worms  that  she  swallowed  years  before 
anybody  now  living  was  born.  But  as  a  matter  of  curiosity  one 
would  like  to  know  what  is  happening  inside  of  her.  Clearly  her 
digestive  fluids  must  be  of  the  best. 

I  imagine  that  toads  live  a  great  while — at  least  that  is  the 
impression  among  country  people.  Old  men  will  declare  even 
that  they  have  known  a  certain  toad  all  their  lives  ;  but  this 
proves  nothing,  for  some  descendant  may  so  exactly  resemble  its 
ancestor  as  to  deceive  the  most  careful  observer.^ 

*  During  the  winter  of  1898  Martha  and  Jane  vanished  and  were  no  more 
seen.  In  February  1899,  however,  they  reappeared  from  their  hiding  places 
beneath  the  hot-water  pipes  and  would  sit  for  hours  with  their  noses  glued  to 
the  zinc  screens  of  the  ventilators,  and  even  against  the  cracks  of  the  doors, 
desiring  doubtless  now  that  the  year  had  turned  towards  spring  to  escape  into 
the  open  to  spawn.  Clearly  lobworms  and  woodlice  artificially  supplied  no 
longer  consoled  them  for  captivity.  At  length  I  took  pity  upon  the  poor 
things,  and  on  a  certain  mild  damp  day  let  them  go.  Off  they  waddled 
in  haste,  heading  for  the  rose  border,  the  bold  Martha  leading  the  way  and 
the  pallid  Jane  with  backbone  painfully  distinct  following  humbly  at  a 
distance.  When  I  searched  for  them  half  an  hour  later  they  had  departed, 
probably  beneath  the  soil.  Let  us  hope  that  in  generations  to  be  the  recollec- 
tion of  their  imprisonment  in  that  shining  mysterious  place  where  towering 
creatures  provided  them  with  worms  in  bewildering  abundance  will  come  to 
be  regarded  by  them  as  a  pleasant  episode  in  a  somewhat  monotonous  career. 

The  further  Manceuvres  of  Jane 

June  2,  1899. 
A  marvel  has  come  to  pass — ^Jane  has  returned  to  captivity,  plumper  and 
in  better  condition  than  she  left  it  four  months  ago,  but  without  doubt  the 
same  pallid,  patient,  gentle-natured  Jane.  It  happened  thus.  This  very 
morning,  going  to  the  door  of  the  cool  glasshouse,  which  is  devoted  to  hardy 
cypripediums  and  other  moisture-loving  plants,  I  found  sitting  on  the  stone  sill 
and  staring  hard  at  the  cracks  of  the  door  none  other  than  dear  Jane.  Guessing 
her  wishes  I  opened  it,  and  in  she  waddled,  turned  to  the  right  as  usual,  and 
Bt  once  established  herself  amongst  the  wet  shingle.  Now  what  can  have 
brought  this  creature  back  in  so  strange  a  fashion  ?     My  own  belief  is  that  the 


AUGUST  299 

The  sight  of  Martha  wrestling  with  a  very  large  worm  always 
reminds  me  of  a  seldom-seen  combat,  which  once  it  was  my  good 
fortune  to  behold,  between  a  thresher  {Alopias  vulpes)  or  threshers — 
for  I  could  not  be  sure  whether  there  was  one  or  more  of  them — and 
a  large  whale.  What  the  exact  connection  in  my  mind  may  be  I 
cannot  say,  for  the  creatures  concerned  are  different  indeed  in  size, 
but  I  fancy  that  it  has  to  do  with  the  ferocity  of  the  efforts  made  in 
either  case  by  the  attacker  and  its  victim.  Never  shall  I  forget 
that  titanic  scene.  The  huge  ocean  mammal  lay  floundering  and 
blowing  upon  the  surface  of  the  sea,  into  whose  depths  from  time 
to  time  he  tried  to  sink ;  but  whenever  he  began  to  *  sound '  some- 
thing always  seemed  to  prevent  him.  Whether  this  failure  was 
owing  to  the  action  of  a  swordfish  working  away  at  the  whale 
underneath,  in  order  to  keep  him  on  the  top  of  the  water  while  the 
thresher  or  threshers  attended  to  business  above,  is  more  than  I 
can  say.  I  have  been  told,  however,  that  these  two  creatures  enter 
into  partnership  for  this  murderous  purpose,  with  the  result  that, 
notwithstanding  his  size  and  strength,  the  whale  attacked  has  about 
as  much  chance  against  them  as  has  the  log  which  lies  between 
the  top  and  bottom  sawyers  of  escaping  unsevered  from  the  pit. 

sudden  change  of  the  weather  from  unseasonable  cold  to  summer  heat  has 
caused  it  to  remember  with  pleasure  the  damp  shaded  greenhouse  with  its 
abounding  worms,  and  to  seek  shelter  there.  But  this  presupposes  memory, 
for  instinct  would  not  bring  a  creature  back  to  a  conservatory.  And  if  toads 
have  active  memory  of  such  sort  ? — but  the  problem  is  too  deep  for  me.  At  any 
rate  there  is  Jane — all  have  recognised  her  pale  complexion,  her  widowed  air. 
I  am  proud  to  add  also  that  the  sympathy  between  us,  which  I  thought  gone, 
is  quite  restored,  for  now  Jane  allows  me  to  stroke  her  speckly  head,  and  puffs 
herself  out  with  pleasure  at  the  touch  of  kindness  which  makes  us  kin.  Her 
appetite,  too,  is  excellent ;  she  has  just  breakfasted  off  three  woodlice  (one 
large),  two  centipedes,  and  half  a  worm — and  yet  almost  do  I  wish  that  I  could 
persuade  Jane  to  become  a  vegetarian.  Another  strange  occurrence :  a  second 
half-grown  toad  has  appeared  in  the  same  greenhouse,  a  weird,  wild,  fear- 
haunted  creature,  that  won't  sit  still.  Can  this  be  Babette — the  lost  Babette, 
whose  fate  was  hid  in  mystery — Babette  whom  we  thought  anthro-  or  Bufo- 
pophagically  absorbed — escaped  and  adolescent  ?  Who  knows  ?  But  the 
bold  Martha — where  is  She  ? 


300  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

So  there  the  agonised  and  stricken  creature  rolled,  wallowing  in 
a  fringe  of  bloody  foam,  while  continually  the  great  butcher-fish 
leapt  high  into  the  air,  as  he  fell  striking  Behemoth  such  a  blow 
upon  the  head  or  back  with  his  fearful  tail  that  the  sound  of  it 
echoed  far  across  the  quiet  sea. 

The  last  act  of  this  tragedy  of  the  deep  was  seen  by  no  mortal 
eye,  for  ere  the  end  came  our  ship  had  passed  out  of  sight  of  it. 
But  I  think  that  it  was  near  at  hand,  and  that  before  we  were  hull 
down  the  cruel  sea-foxes  and  the  swordfish,  with  their  retinue  of 
sharks,  were  tearing  the  tongue  and  blubber  in  great  lumps  from 
the  throat  and  belly  of  the  dying  whale.  ^ 

Truly  nature  is  a  savage  thing,  and  the  Natural  law,  of  which 
St.  Paul  talks,  an  abomination.  Here,  by  way  of  example,  is  a  hedge- 
side  instance  of  it.  The  other  day,  while  walking  on  the  road,  I 
heard  a  sound  of  sharp,  thin  screams  coming  from  the  long  grasses 
of  the  bank.  Peeping  among  them  I  saw  a  cruel  sight,  for 
writhing  there,  in  vain  efforts  to  escape,  was  a  half-grown  frog, 
whilst  gnawing  and  worrying  at  its  legs  and  hinder  parts  I  per- 
ceived a  mole.  Never  before  did  I  know  that  moles  could  be  so 
active ;  for  this  one  would  let  go,  vanish  amongst  the  tall  grass 
stems,  then  glide  up  swiftly  and  recommence  his  savage  attack,  that 
caused  the  frog  to  cry  out  thus  piteously  in  fear  and  pain. 
Frightening  him  away  with  my  stick,  I  examined  the  frog,  which 
now  was  lying  exhausted  on  its  back,  its  hind  legs  and  stomach 
chewed  to  a  red  pulp,  so  that  I  think  it  can  scarcely  have 
recovered.  Do  moles,  then,  eat  frogs,  after  the  fashion  of  water-rats, 
or  was  this  onslaught  inspired  by  some  individual  hate  ? 

Another  instance:  some  years  back  I  was  standing  on  the  Gibbet 

'  Since  writing  the  above  passage  I  have  read  in  a  book  by  Mr.  Louis 
Becke,  the  chronicler  of  the  Southern  Seas,  a  thrilling  account  of  a  fight 
between  a  thresher  and  a  whale,  which  took  place  off  the  coast  of  New  South 
Wales.  In  this  instance  the  thresher  was  assisted  by  two  bulldog  fish 
of  the  whale  tribe,  called  Orca  gladiator.  Perhaps  in  the  battle  I  saw  Orca 
gladiator  was  at  work  also — if  he  frequents  the  West  Coast  of  Africa.  Certainly 
I  saw  fish  leaping  out  of  the  water,  and  falling  on  to  the  back  of  the  whale, 
which  looked  to  me  as  though  they  weighed  many  tons. 


AUGUST  301 

Common  at  Bradenham,  when  I  saw  and  heard  a  full-grown  rabbit 
run  by  me  and  vanish  into  a  dense  clump  of  gorse,  shrieking  loudly, 
for  no  apparent  reason.  Astonished,  I  remained  still  to  watch  what 
happened,  till  presently,  from  half  a  minute  to  a  minute  after- 
wards, I  caught  sight  of  a  white-bellied  stoat  gliding  along  the  rabbit's 
spoor  to  hunt  it  down  by  scent.  It  vanished  also  into  the  gorse 
clump,  and  there  the  tragedy  completed  itself,  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  more  piercing  screams.  But  when  I  first  saw  the  rabbit 
it  was  crying  out,  not  with  pain,  but  with  nervous  apprehension. 
Instinct  doubtless  told  it  that  it  was  doomed,  and  its  screams  were 
an  appeal  to  the  deaf  heavens  for  mercy.  It  was  the  creature's  evi- 
dent foreknowledge  of  agony  to  come  that  made  its  fate  so  dreadful. 
These  are  the  mercies  of  Nature  'red  in  tooth  and  claw.' 
What  wonder  that  the  vegetarians  and  others  preach  and  strive 
against  her,  although  with  as  much  chance  of  success  as  has  the 
tortured  lobworm  between  the  jaws  of  Martha  ?  In  the  infinite 
past,  in  the  present,  and  in  the  future  for  so  long  as  time  shall 
endure,  the  law  of  our  physical  universe  is  a  law  of  death  made 
as  terrible  as  possible  to  all  that  breathes  by  antecedent  torment 
of  the  frame  and  the  intelligence,  for  there  seems  to  be  no 
creature  so  humble  that  it  cannot  suffer  fear  and  dread.  Such 
being  the  heavy  yoke  of  the  Natural  law,  certainly  the  promised 
advent  of  the  Spiritual  is  needed  to  redress  the  balance. 

August  8. — Yesterday  afternoon  we  had  heavy  rain,  which  set 
in  at  twelve  o'clock  and  continued  till  sunset,  but  as  it  was 
Sunday  this  interfered  with  nothing.  To-day  also  it  has  been 
raining  since  early  morning — a  real  old-fashioned  wet  day,  of 
which  we  have  seen  few  for  the  last  three  or  four  years.  Not- 
withstanding the  weather,  however,  we  have  been  hoeing  the  root 
on  Baker's,  which  is  a  work  we  are  most  anxious  to  get  done  with 
before  harvest. 

Towards  evening  I  walked  to  one  of  the  root  fields,  in  order 
to  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  much-needed  rain  fall  upon  it. 
How  the  turnips  seemed  to  rejoice  in  the  moisture  as  it  pattered 


302  A   FARMER'S   YEAR 

continually  upon  their  green  leaves,  now  flagging  no  longer,  and 
ran  in  shining  beads  down  to  the  neck  of  the  bulbs,  then  over  them 
to  the  droughty  earth,  that  sucked  up  every  precious  drop  of  it  as 
greedily  as  does  a  sponge  parched  by  the  sirocco !  One  could 
almost  see  their  delight — thirsty  children  new  satisfied  could  not 
look  more  glad. 

Leaving  the  field,  I  walked  down  the  Bungay  road,  on  which 
thin  pools  of  water  glimmered  like  March  ice ;  till  presently  I 
met  a  man  in  a  cart  who  was  looking  for  Hood.  I  asked  him 
what  was  the  matter,  and  he  told  me  that  the  foal  which  had  been 
running  with  its  dam — the  pony  from  Bedingham — on  the  long 
railway  marsh,  No.  20,  was  stretched  upon  its  side  dying.  Asking 
my  informant  to  find  Hood,  I  pushed  on  to  the  marsh,  and  there 
I  found  the  foal — a  beautiful  little  black-pointed  and  muzzled 
thing  of  five  months  old — not  dying,  but  stone  dead.  There  it 
lay  upon  its  side,  its  slender  legs  stretched  out  stiffly,  its  head 
quite  motionless,  not  asleep — dead,  dead — a  glance  showed  it. 
Over  it  stood  the  mare,  as  still  as  though  she  had  been  cut  in 
stone,  her  ears  sloped  back,  but  not  with  vice,  her  under  lip  pro- 
jecting, the  milk  dripping  from  her  distended  udder,  and  in  the 
large  eyes  and  on  the  patient  face  a  look  of  woe  utter  and 
pathetic.  No  human  mother  grieving  over  her  first-born  could 
have  shown  sorrow  more  visibly ;  yet  this  creature  made  no  moan, 
and  weep  it  could  not.  It  knew  that  its  offspring  was  dead  ;  and 
to  me,  the  watcher,  it  seemed  to  be  trying  to  understand  what 
this  death  meant,  and  why  it  caused  such  suffering. 

Perhaps,  however,  this  was  fancy;  perhaps  horses  do  not 
know  mental  pain,  and  the  impression  I  received  was  due  partly 
to  the  surroundings  of  the  scene.  Above,  the  sky  sullen  and 
grey,  dropping  a  thin  and  failing  rain ;  below  the  sodden  grass,  in 
which  water  splashed  beneath  the  foot ;  to  the  west  the  struggling 
and  smoky  sunset,  whereof  a  red  ray  lit  upon  the  surface  of  the 
long,  reed-fringed  dyke ;  and  for  background  a  few  melancholy 
willows,  round  about  which  stretched  the  desolate  expanse  of 
marsh.     Not  a  soul  to  be  seen,  not  a  sound  to  be  heard  save  the 


AUGUST  303 

far-away  note  of  a  plover  calling  towards  the  common.  And  there, 
falling  naturally  into  that  sad  scheme  of  colour,  a  key  and  answer 
to  the  picture  as  it  were,  this  live  animal,  with  the  milk  trickling 
from  its  udder,  standing  over  the  dead,  itself  as  still  as  the  dead. 
Could  it  be  painted  as  I  saw  it,  that  scene  might  serve  as  a 
symbol  of  all  loss,  all  sorrow,  and  all  death.  And  yet  it  was  made 
up  of  a  mare  standing  over  a  dead  foal  in  a  wet  pasture — nothing 
more. 

We  had  great  difficulty,  by  the  way,  in  driving  the  pony  from 
the  body  of  the  foal,  to  which  it  broke  back  continually  through 
the  ring  of  those  who  were  engaged  in  its  capture. 

Only  once  before  in  my  life  did  I  witness  a  pastoral  scene  that 
left  quite  so  strong  a  sense  of  desolation  upon  my  mind.  It  was 
in  the  uplands  of  Natal,  in  the  year  of  the  Boer  rebellion,  when  a 
snowstorm,  such  as  had  never  been  known,  swept  the  country^ 
killing  thousands  of  horses  and  cattle.  I  was  travelling  towards 
the  coast,  walking  with  my  companions  behind  the  cart,  so  that 
the  mules  might  find  it  lighter  to  drag  through  the  snowdrifts. 
Presently  we  saw  two  waggons,  that  seemed  to  have  a  deserted 
appearance,  standing  at  a  distance  from  the  track,  and  went  to 
look  at  them.  What  we  found  is  not  easy  to  forget !  There  was 
a  space  between  the  waggons,  where  their  owners  had  tried  to 
make  a  shelter  for  the  cattle  by  tying  a  tilt  from  one  roof-tent 
and  dissel-boom  to  the  other.  This  had  availed  nothing  against 
the  icy  blast,  however,  for  in  the  enclosure  lay  the  oxen  dead — a 
confused  and  motley-coloured  heap  of  them.  Or,  rather,  thirty 
were  dead.  One  still  moved  in  the  heap,  and  one,  the  last 
survivor,  stood  over  them,  his  great  horns  swaying  to  and  fro,  as 
little  by  little  the  unaccustomed  cold  froze  into  his  heart.  At 
the  back  of  the  nearest  waggon,  staring  at  the  dead  cattle  and 
wrapped  round  with  sacks,  sat  a  man  and  a  woman,  rude,  unwashed 
Boers.  We  asked  them  if  the  snow  had  killed  the  oxen,  and  the 
man  answered  ''Ja.^ 

*They  were  all  we  had,'  added  the  woman  in  an  unemotional 
voice.     *  Now  we  are  beggars.' 


304  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Then  we  ran  on  to  overtake  the  cart,  but  at  a  little  distance  I 
turned  back  to  look,  and  there  was  the  living  ox  swaying  over  its 
dead  yoke-fellows ;  there  the  two  Boers  staring  sullenly  at  the  sight ; 
there  the  dismal-looking  waggons  on  the  vast  and  lonely  veld,  life- 
less now  beneath  its  winding-sheet  of  snow  ;  while  over  all,  piercing 
the  grey  cloud,  a  fierce  ray  from  the  westering  sun  fell  like  some 
sudden  and  gigantic  sword. 

To-day  I  have  received  by  the  post  two  interesting  documents. 
The  first  of  them  is  a  prospectus  of  Carton's,  Limited.  The  work 
done  by  Messrs.  R.  &  J.  Garton  in  producing  new  breeds  of  cereals, 
grasses,  and  clovers  is  well  known  among  agriculturists.  Myself,  I 
have  never  seen  any  of  these  corns  or  grasses,  but,  if  the  published 
accounts  are  correct,  some  of  them  must  be  remarkable. 

In  their  prospectus  Messrs.  Garton  claim  that  among  the  cereals 
they  have  created  '  are  composed  a  series  from  which  new  and 
valuable  food  elements  can  be  obtained  which  it  is  impossible  to 
obtain  from  the  varieties  now  generally  cultivated.'  They  do  not, 
however,  propose  to  offer  the  seed  of  this  series  for  sale,  as  all  its 
produce  is  to  be  retained  by  the  company,  when  formed,  for  the 
manufacture  of  '  new  and  distinct  food  products  for  human  con- 
sumption, for  which  patent  rights  will  be  applied  for  in  due 
course.'  On  the  feasibility  of  this  scheme  it  is  difficult  to  express 
any  opinion.  It  may  be  remarked,  however,  that  hitherto  the 
existing  cereals,  wheat,  barley,  oats,  &c.,  have  amply  satisfied  the 
wants  of  man,  although  this  does  not  prove  that  tribes  of  grain 
possessing  still  richer  qualities  cannot  be  evolved  by  human  skill. 
Here  is  a  question  which  only  the  future  can  decide,  and  one 
whereof  the  development  will  be  watched  with  great  interest  by  the 
world,  though  it  may  be  doubted  whether,  should  Messrs.  Garton 
succeed  in  their  tremendous  aim  of  the  creation  of  a  new  and 
superior  food-stuff,  any  patent  law  would  enable  them  to  withhold 
the  advantages  of  their  discovery  from  the  public.  For  the 
present,  however,  most  people  would  be  satisfied  with  the  improve- 
ment of  existing  cereals,  a  task  to  which  their  skill  seems  to  have 
been  directed  with  admirable  results.     It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 


AUGUST  305 

company  which  they  are  forming  will  be  as  successful  in  the  future 
as  their  firm  seems  to  have  been  individually  in  the  past.  As  I 
gather  from  the  prospectus  that  the  whole  of  the  ordinary 
shares  are  to  remain  in  their  hands,  and  that  they  will  continue 
to  manage  the  venture,  this  does  not  seem  an  extravagant 
expectation. 

The  second  document  is  a  circular  from  that  splendid  society, 
the  Royal  Agricultural  Benevolent  Institution,  addressed  to  me  as 
churchwarden  of  this  parish,  and  asking  that  the  whole  or  part 
of  the  Harvest  Thanksgiving  collection  should  be  devoted  to  the 
Society,  which  since  the  year  i860  has  already  distributed  over 
360,000/.  among  distressed  agriculturists  and  their  children. 
Appended  to  the  circular  are  a  few  examples  of  agricultural  mis- 
fortune. They  are  melancholy  reading,  but,  like  most  people 
connected  with  the  land,  I  could  supplement  them  from  my  own 
experience  by  instances  equally  sad.  The  distresses  of  those  who 
in  this  country  try  to  win  a  living  out  of  the  products  of  the  earth 
are  a  very  favourite  subject  of  jest  among  celebrated  after-dinner 
speakers,  and  rarely  fail  to  provoke  a  ready  laugh  from  an 
audience  which  has  just  dined  upon  American  flour.  River  Plate 
beef,  Australian  mutton,  Russian  fowls,  French  milk,  Dutch 
margarine,  and  German  beet-sugar.  Heaven  knows,  however, 
that  they  are  genuine  enough,  as  the  Agricultural  Benevolent 
Institution  will  have  no  difficulty  in  proving  to  any  who  trouble  to 
inquire  into  the  matter. 

August  f^. — I  forgot  to  state  in  my  diary  yesterday  that  the 
foal  was  supposed  to  have  expired  of  chill  resulting  from  exposure 
to  wet  and  cold  on  the  low  railway  marsh.  This  theory  struck 
me  as  odd ;  first,  because  I  was  told  that  the  little  creature  had 
been  seen  playing  round  its  dam  not  four  hours  before  the  end, 
and  secondly,  because  it  showed  no  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
having  come  to  its  death  from  any  such  cause.  For  these  reasons 
I  directed  that  a  post-mortem  examination  should  be  made.  This 
was  done  by  the  veterinary  this  morning,  with  the  result  that  the 

X 


3o6  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

animal  is  proved  to  have  died  from  the  effects  of  an  irritant 
vegetable  poison.  The  stomach,  which  I  saw,  is  perfectly 
scarlet  in  colour,  and  spotted  here  and  there  with  bright  purple 
patches.  That  the  working  of  this  poison  must  have  been  very 
violent  and  sudden  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  inflammation 
does  not  descend  into  the  passages  beyond  the  stomach,  and  by 
the  absence  of  all  swelling.  The  suggestion  of  the  veterinary  is 
that  the  animal  must  have  eaten  the  poisonous  weed  known  as 
water  hemlock,  which  it  seems  that  foals  will  devour,  although 
older  animals  reject  it.  As  he  informs  us  that  the  fee  will 
only  be  ten  shillings,  we  have  agreed  that  the  inflamed  organ 
shall  be  sent  to  an  expert  to  be  scientifically  examined.  If  there  is 
any  venomous  herb  growing  in  this  marsh,  it  is  desirable  that  we 
should  know  its  nature. 

August  lo. — The  wet  weather  continues,  but  we  are  able  to 
plough  and  drill  headlands  with  turnip  seed.  Hood  and  the 
veterinary  have  been  searching  the  railway  marsh,  and  have  found 
a  poisonous  weed  growing  upon  it  which  is  known  as  fool's  parsley, 
some  plants  of  which  seem  to  have  been  recently  bitten.  As  no 
water-hemlock  has  been  discovered— the  administration  of  any 
drug  being  out  of  the  question  —it  is  supposed  that  this  fool's 
parsley  did  the  mischief.  The  odd  thing  is  that  all  last  year,  and 
I  think  during  previous  seasons,  foals  were  running  on  this  marsh 
without  taking  the  slightest  injury  from  its  herbage.  This  spring, 
however,  the  weather  was  wet,  and  it  occurs  to  me  as  possible 
that  damp  favours  the  production  of  deadly  weeds.  At  the 
same  time  it  must  be  remembered  that  we  have  had  wet  springs 
before  that  of  1898. 

August  12. — To-day  arrived  two  Southdown  rams  and  thirty- 
one  black-faced  ewes,  which  Mr.  Robert  Simpson  had  bought  for 
me  at  the  sale  at  Bury.  The  rams  are  aged,  and  one  of  them  is 
rather  shaky  on  his  feet,  from  foot-rot  in  past  seasons  I  suppose  ; 
but  I  understand  that  their  pedigree  is  distinguished,  and  as  they 


AUGUST  307 

only  cost  forty  shillings  apiece  I  cannot  complain.  The  ewes,  on 
the  other  hand,  were  bought  at  fifty-one  shillings  a  head.  This  is 
twelve  shillings  apiece  more  than  I  gave  two  years  ago  for  my 
present  lot  of  black-faced  ewes,  which  are  very  much  better  bred 
than  these  new  additions  to  the  flock.  The  fact  is  that  black- 
faced  Suffolk  sheep  have  recently  become  more  popular,  with  the 
result  that  their  price  has  risen.  Large  sums  are  paid  for  the 
best  of  them ;  thus  I  hear  that  a  gentleman  in  the  neighbourhood 
has  just  given  fifty  guineas  for  a  ram  of  this  breed. 

To-day  we  are  cutting  the  All  Hallows  pease,  for  it  is  our  first 
of  harvest,  and,  what  is  of  good  augury,  very  fine.  These  pease 
are  a  poor  crop,  partly  from  the  coldness  of  the  spring  and 
partly  because  of  the  red-weed  with  which  this  land  is  infested. 
At  Bedingham  they  begin  harvest  to-morrow.  To-day  Moore  is 
horse-hoeing  the  white  turnips  which  are  drilled  on  No.  18, 
where  the  fly  took  off  the  swedes.  Oddly  enough,  it  did  not 
touch  the  turnips,  so  there  is  a  very  good  plant  of  them. 

August  15. — Last  Saturday,  the  13th,  we  cut  the  pease  on 
Baker's,  which  are  a  much  better  crop  than  those  upon  All 
Hallows,  probably  because  this  field  was  manured,  part  of  it, 
with  Bungay  compost.  Some  authorities  say,  however,  that  pease 
do  best  without  the  stimulus  of  manure,  but  I  suppose  that  this 
is  only  when  the  land  is  in  good  heart,  which  is  not  the  case  on 
Baker's.  The  weather,  both  on  Saturday,  Sunday,  and  to-day,  has 
been  lovely,  and  exceedingly  hot.  The  barleys  are  now  very  white 
and  '  dying '  fast,  too  quickly,  I  fear,  for  the  good  of  the  sample. 
The  wheat  also  has  turned  a  rich  golden  yellow,  and  is  not  so 
much  beaten  down  by  the  recent  rains  as  might  have  been 
expected. 

This  morning  we  set  the  new  reaper  to  work  on  the  glebe 
fields  of  oats,  Nos.  39  and  40,  which  are  bearing  a  good  crop 
for  so  scaldy  a  piece  of  land,  owing  doubtless  to  the  wet  of 
the  early  summer.  Before  the  machine  can  be  put  in  a  pathway 
for  it  must  be  mown  round  the  field  with  a  scythe.     Then  the 

X  2 


3o8  A  FARMER'S  YEAR 

thing  starts,  drawn  by  two  horses.  It  is  beautiful  to  see  it  work, 
for  it  cuts  wonderfully  clean,  the  arms  sweeping  the  bundles  of 
corn  from  the  platform  in  sheaves,  ready  for  the  binder.  By  a 
clever  contrivance  of  the  mechanism,  which  it  is  impossible  to 
explain  here,  this  act  is  not  always  performed  by  the  same  arm. 
The  limb  that  at  one  revolution  delivers  the  bundle  from  the  table 
to  the  ground,  at  the  next  merely  bends  the  straw  over  the 
knives,  while  another  dips  down  to  the  platform  and  clears  it. 

Thus  into  these  various  and  complex  operations  the  strength  of 
the  horses  is  transformed  and  distributed  to  each  of  them  in  such 
proportion  as  is  needful.  Care,  however,  must  be  taken  at  the 
corners,  where  the  reaper  turns,  or  it  will  jam ;  indeed,  it  is 
well  for  a  man  to  round  these  off  with  a  scythe.  Some  people 
yoke  three  horses  to  such  machines,  but  I  use  only  two,  which  are 
changed  at  noon,  as  half  a  day's  work  with  a  reaper  behind  them 
is  quite  enough  for  a  pair  of  horses.  I  believe,  by  using  six  horses 
instead  of  four,  under  favourable  circumstances,  that  twelve  or 
thirteen  acres  can  be  '  knocked  down,'  but  we  are  quite  satisfied 
if  we  get  through  six  or  eight  in  a  day's  work.  By  the  way,  I 
see  in  the  papers  that  a  terrific  accident  has  just  happened  with  one 
of  these  machines.  A  pair  of  horses  attached  to  it  bolted,  and  in 
trying  to  stop  them  their  owner  was  thrown  to  the  ground  and  so 
cut  about  by  the  knives  that  he  died. 

August  1 8. — Yesterday  we  finished  mowing  the  barley  on  the 
Ape  field.  No.  26,  and  that  on  the  part  of  No.  23  opposite  which 
was  sown  with  this  grain.  I  heard  from  Hood  that  two  parties 
had  expressed  a  willingness  to  take  Bedingham  if  we  could 
come  to  terms.  I  shall  decline  their  offers  with  thanks,  as,  after 
the  expense  and  labour  of  bringing  this  farm  into  condition,  I 
do  not  care  to  run  the  risk  of  its  ruin  at  the  hands  of  a  yearly 
tenant. 

This  morning  there  fell  a  very  heavy  dew — indeed,  as  I  walked 
down  to  bathe  in  the  "Waveney,  about  half- past  seven,  everything 
was  drenched  with  it,  and  the  feel  of  the  air  was  quite  autumnal. 


AUGUST  309 

We  have  carted  all  the  barley  from  the  Ape  field,  after  it  has 
been  but  two  days  cut ;  which  can  only  be  done  when  no  grass- 
seeds  have  been  sown  with  the  grain  to  make  a  hay  crop  in  the 
second  year.  This  used  to  be  an  invariable  practice  with  us,  but 
now  that  I  have  so  much  land  down  to  permanent  pasture,  some 
of  the  barley  stubbles  are  broken  up  for  other  crops  ;  thus  beans 
will  be  drilled  upon  the  Ape  field  this  autumn.  I  should  have 
added  that  the  reason  why  the  presence  of  layer  prevents  an  early 
carting  of  barley  is  that,  being  green  and  succulent,  it  takes  a 
while  to  dry,  whereas  the  corn  itself,  which  in  this  respect  differs 
from  wheat,  and  still  more  from  oats,  is  as  a  rule  practically 
sapless  and  dead  when  it  is  severed  from  the  ground.  A  sample 
of  this  barley  rubbed  in  the  hand  looks  a  little  white  to  my  eye; 
but  I  hope  that  it  will  take  more  colour  after  '  sweating '  for  a  few 
weeks  on  the  stack,  or  rather  in  the  home  barn,  where  it  has  been 
stored  till  the  day  of  thrashing. 

About  the  end  of  last  May,  in  the  quiet  of  evening,  when  no 
gardeners  were  about,  a  pair  of  cuckoos  might  have  been  seen 
gliding  with  their  curious  dipping  flight  to  and  fro  across  the  lawn- 
tennis  court,  as  they  flew  uttering  from  time  to  time  a  broken 
and  unusual  note.  Now  we  know  what  was  their  felonious  intent, 
for  on  the  lawn  has  recently  appeared  a  young  cuckoo  being  fed  by 
two  water-wagtails,  with  which  I  have  been  acquainted  for  many 
years.  Heavens  !  how  those  poor  little  birds  must  work  to  keep 
their  fosterling  supplied  !  There  the  voracious,  angry-looking 
creature  sits,  now  in  one  place  and  now  in  another,  his  scarlet  maw 
extended  wide,  and  eats,  and  scolds,  and  scolds,  and  eats  from 
dawn  till  dusk,  and  for  aught  I  know  to  the  contrary  from  dusk  to 
dawn  as  well.  After  about  a  week  of  it  one  of  the  wagtails  has 
either  deceased  from  exhaustion  or  thrown  up  the  contract — at 
any  rate  his  mate  is  now  alone  and  working  double  tides — for  the 
cuckoo  grows  fast  and  is  continually  hungrier.  Sometimes  it 
perches  in  the  boughs  of  a  beech  tree  to  be  fed,  and  this  afternoon 
I  saw  the  wagtail  actually  seated  upon  its  head  there,  and  from 
that  position  thrusting  insects  down  its  insatiable  throat. 


310  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

August  19.— To-day  I  drove  with  my  agent,  Mr.  Simpson, 
round  some  outlying  farms  belonging  to  this  property.  One  of 
them  is  being  farmed  by  two  maiden  ladies  of  an  old-fashioned 
type.  By  '  old-fashioned,'  however,  I  mean  nothing  disparaging, 
but  that,  instead  of  playing  the  piano  and  looking  genteel  in  a  silk 
dress  and  a  sham  diamond  ring,  these  ladies  bake  and  brew  and 
cook,  employing  a  managing  man  to  see  to  the  stock  and  field- 
work.  They  are  types  of  a  class  that  is  fast  vanishing  from  this 
county,  and  whom  it  is  well  to  study  while  there  is  yet  time. 
Moreover,  they  always  seem  to  welcome  their  landlord  when  he 
chances  to  pass  their  way,  and  the  land  they  till  is  in  excellent 
condition. 

The  next  farm  we  visited  is  that  where  the  old  gentleman  lived 
who  slept  every  night  of  his  long  life  in  the  same  room  in  which 
he  was  born,  and  died.  Since  his  day,  however,  there  has  been 
another  tenant  here,  and  one  of  not  a  good  stamp.  He  has 
departed,  leaving  the  land  in  a  very  different  condition  from  that 
in  which  he  took  it,  and  the  place  has  been  re-let  to  the  present 
holder.  The  house,  where  his  predecessor  lived  and  died — a  low, 
steep-roofed  building,  rather  long  for  its  size — is  in  fair  order, 
but  the  state  of  the  farm  buildings  is — or  was — fearful.  The  old 
gentleman,  who  had  known  them  from  his  childhood,  did  not 
care  to  see  them  interfered  with,  and  the  last  man  was  not  a 
person  to  be  encouraged  with  repairs,  but  now  these  have  to  be 
faced.  This  year  about  90/.  is  being  spent  on  the  barn,  cowshed, 
and  stable,  and  there  remains  a  good  deal  more  to  be  done  in  the 
future.  When  finished  the  buildings  will  be  snug  and  convenient, 
being  wood-clad  with  a  brick  footing ;  but  the  rent  of  the  holding 
is  now  only  27/.  105.,  so  that  when  even  the  present  repairs  are 
paid  for  no  profit  will  come  out  of  it  for  more  than  three  years. 
At  this  rate  it  would  take  a  landlord  some  time  to  develop  into 
the  plutocrat  familiar  to  the  mind  of  the  rural  agitator. 

After  inspecting  these  repairs  we  went  on  to  a  much  larger 
farm — two  hundred  acres  of  land — which  for  some  years  past  has 
been  bringing  in  the  magnificent  revenue  of  50/.  a  year  minus 


AUGUST  %tx 

tithe  (about  25/.)  and  repairs  (a  varying  quantity).'  On  the 
pastures  of  this  farm  grow  some  very  good  oaks,  and,  remembering 
a  particularly  grand  tree  in  a  certain  meadow,^  I  went  to  look  at 
it.  Presently  it  came  in  sight,  but  although  the  big  bole  was 
there,  somehow  its  appearance  seemed  to  have  changed.  Then  I 
saw  the  whole  truth.  The  lower  limbs  of  the  tree— great  rungs 
which  had  been  perhaps  one  or  two  hundred  years  in  growing — 
had  been  mercilessly  sawn  off.  It  was  ruined.  Full  of  feelings 
which  it  would  be  improper  to  express  on  paper,  I  proceeded  to 
another  part  of  the  farm  where  stood  a  second  fine  oak.  To  be 
brief,  the  same  thing  had  happened — the  lower  boughs  were 
sawn  off,  and  its  shape  and  beauty,  which  had  slowly  matured 
through  centuries,  were  destroyed  for  ever.  Then  I  am  afraid 
that  I  lost  my  temper.  Calling  the  head  man  on  the  farm — the 
tenant  himself  was  not  there — I  spoke  my  mind  to  him,  and  asked 
why  this  thing  had  been  done,  telling  him  with  truth  that  however 
little  I  might  be  able  to  afford  it,  I  would  rather  have  given  a 
year's  rent  of  the  farm  than  see  those  oaks  thus  mangled.  To  all 
this  his  only  reply  was  that  his  master  had  told  him  to  cut  off 
the  limbs  ;  the  fact  being,  I  presume,  that  as  in  each  case  the  trees 
threw  some  shadow  on  the  adjoining  arable  land,  it  was  thought 
profitable  to  thin  them  by  removing  the  lower  boughs,  which 
could  be  used  as  firewood.  I  know  another  instance  of  the  same 
thing,  where,  on  an  estate  belonging  to  a  relation,  the  lower 
branches  of  a  whole  line  of  oaks  which  stand  by  a  footpath 
were  hacked  off  by  the  tenant  without  the  owner  even  being 
spoken  to  about  the  matter.  Five-and-twenty  years  ago  such 
an  outrage  could  scarcely  have  happened,  but  now  the  tenant 
is  often  master  of  the  situation,  and  this  is  one  way  of  showing 
his  independence. 

I  must  add  that  since  the  above  was  written  Mr.  Simpson  has 
received  a  letter  from   the   gentleman   concerned   in   this   tree- 

*  To  show  what  has  been  the  decrease  in  the  value  of  agricultural  land  in 
these  counties,  I  may  point  out  that  in  i860  this  farm  brought  in  an  annual 
rent  of  263/. 


312  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

tragedy.  He  says  that  his  man  tells  him  that  the  trees  he  cut 
were  damaged  in  a  gale  last  March  twelvemonth.  It  may  be  so, 
but  in  that  event  it  is  strange  that  the  wind  chanced  to  strike 
the  lower  and  more  sheltered  boughs  only ;  also  that  theii 
removal  had  been  put  off  for  so  long,  and  that  the  man 
did  not  mention  these  facts,  but  told  me  that  he  cut  these 
rungs  away  by  order  of  his  master.  However,  they  are  gone, 
leaving  the  world  poorer  by  two  beautiful  oaks,  so  there  is  an  end 
of  the  case.  I  daresay  that  if  they  still  stand,  in  another  century 
or  more  the  upper  boughs  will  have  thickened  and  they  may 
look  picturesque  again  ;  at  any  rate,  I  like  to  think  so. 

In  driving  through  this  heavy-land  country  I  noticed  two 
things  :  that  the  system  of  cleaning  fields  by  summer  fallowing 
them  is  more  prevalent  than  with  us,  and  that  they  use  a  good 
many  '  maffies.'  '  Maffie '  is  derived  from  hermaphrodite,  and 
signifies  a  cart  on  to  which,  for  the  purpose  of  carting  hay  or  corn, 
is  affixed  a  contrivance  like  the  fore-part  of  a  waggon,  so  that  in 
fact  it  is  neither  cart  nor  waggon.  Hence  the  term.  In  all 
this  stiff-soil  district  the  corn  crops  seem  to  be  heavy  this  year. 

August  2  2. — Saturday  the  20th  was  a  fine,  indeed  a  perfect, 
harvest  day.  The  men  were  engaged  in  cutting  the  barley 
on  the  Thwaite  field,  No.  28,  where  there  is  a  fair  but  not  a 
heavy  crop,  with  a  bottom  rather  full  of  layer,  as  this  portion  of 
No.  28  is  sown  down  for  clover  hay  next  year.  The  sight  of  the  men, 
one  following  the  other  across  the  field  in  a  jagged  line  as  they 
cut  down  the  ripe  corn  with  wide  sweeps  of  the  scythe,  made  a 
fine  picture  of  effort  strenuous  and  combined.  The  place  is  pretty 
too,  with  the  windmill  in  the  background,  and  the  heat-haze 
softened  the  scene,  keeping  it  in  tone  and  making  it  restful. 
One  of  the  features  of  these  mowings  is  the  almost  invariable 
presence  of  a  man  with  a  dog — someone  in  the  village  who  is 
fond  of  a  bit  of  sport.  As  the  mowers  approach  the  end  of  a  stretch 
a  bunny  or  two  will  bolt,  and  be  swept  up  by  the  dog  before  it 
can  win  the  shelter  of  the  hedge.     The  rabbits  thus  obtained  are, 


3 
O 

D    ■■ 
Z    1 


AUGUST  313 

I  believe,  divided  among  all  concerned,  upon  some  fixed  system, 
but  what  it  is  I  do  not  know. 

Here  is  a  story  of  a  gentleman  who  knows  about  everything 
in  the  world  except  the  art  and  practice  of  agriculture,  who  accom- 
panied me  to  Bedingham  yesterday.  Scene :  a  beet  field,  and  by 
the  gate  a  patch  of  tiny  white  turnips  recently  drilled  upon  the  site 
of  the  last  year's  root-clamp,  or  *hale,'  where  swedes  had  been 
stored  and  earthed  over. 

'  Why  are  these  so  much  smaller  than  those  ? '  asked  my 
friend,  pointing  first  to  the  patch  of  little  turnips  and  next  to  the 
tall  beet  in  contact  with  and  surrounding  them. 

*  Because  of  the  hale,'  I  answered. 

'  Indeed  ! '  he  said,  '  that  is  most  interesting.  Do  you  know, 
I  had  no  idea  that  hailstorms  were  ever  so  strictly  local  and  so 
limited  in  their  destructive  effect.  Look,  the  line  might  have 
been  cut  with  a  knife.' 

After  all,  though  we  laughed  at  it,  his  mistake  was  natural, 
for  *  hale  '  and  '  hail '  are  pronounced  the  same,  and  he  had  never 
heard  the  former  term,  which  is,  I  think,  peculiar  to  these  parts. 

Coming  home  through  the  orchard  from  church  about  eight 
o'clock  last  evening,  I  stayed  a  while  in  the  Buildings  stackyard, 
to  watch  a  great  white  owl  hawking  silently  in  the  twilight.  By 
day  and  by  night  life  seems  to  be  a  very  solemn  thing  to  an  owl ; 
but  perhaps — who  knows  ? — he  is  really  a  merry  bird.  Presently, 
grey  and  ghostlike,  he  glided  close  to  my  head,  for  in  the  shadow 
of  the  tall  paled  gate  I  think  that  I  was  invisible  to  him.  Then  he 
turned,  and  rising  to  clear  the  haystack,  saw,  I  suppose,  a  mouse 
running  about  upon  the  thatch.  At  any  rate,  he  swooped,  striking 
the  roof  of  the  stack  with  a  heavy  bump.  But  the  mouse  had  been 
too  quick  for  him,  so,  recovering  himself,  that  owl  departed  in  dis- 
gust, and  a  minute  later  I  heard  his  melancholy  note  far  away 
across  the  lawn. 

This  morning  the  machine  was  cutting  wheat  on  the  top  por- 
tion of  the  pit-hole  field,  No.  23.  Here  the  sparrows  have  done 
great  damage ;  indeed  quite  enough  grain  for  a  seeding  is  lying 


314  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

on  the  land,  picked  from  the  ears  and  cast  away  by  these  mis- 
chievous little  wretches.  In  this  field  there  was  a  mighty  rabbit 
hunt,  for  at  the  end  of  it  lies  the  little  Hollow  Hill  plantation,  also 
the  old  sand-pit  in  its  midst  is  a  great  harbour  for  them.  Several 
men  and  dogs  appeared  upon  the  scene,  and  as  the  area  of  standing 
corn  was  narrowed  to  a  little  patch  the  rabbits  began  to  bolt  from 
it  freely.  To  and  fro  ran  the  men,  shouting,  while  the  scared 
coneys,  after  various  vain  efforts  to  hide  themselves,  made  a 
wild  attempt  to  escape,  the  cur  dogs  leaping  high  into  the  air  to 
try  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  them  as  they  scuttled  through  the  fallen 
corn.  With  many  turns  and  doubles  they  coursed  the  poor 
bunnies,  uttering  short  sharp  yaps  of  excitement,  and,  gripping 
them  at  last  with  their  white  teeth,  shook  and  bit  them  till  they 
were  dead.  In  all  about  a  score  of  rabbits  were  killed,  but  quite 
as  many  more  gained  the  shelter  of  the  hedges  and  plantation. 

In  the  afternoon  the  machine  was  moved  to  the  All  Hallows 
wheat.  No.  32.  On  half  of  this  field  the  corn  is  badly  laid  by  the 
recent  wind  and  rain  storms,  while  in  the  other  half  it  stands 
quite  upright  and  unharmed.  The  laid  half,  through  which  the 
thistles  and  divers  rubbish  are  growing  freely,  was,  I  remember, 
drilled  a  fortnight  before  the  upright  half.  Last  year  this  laid 
portion  produced  a  crop  of  vetches,  and,  as  vetches  are  supposed 
to  exhaust  the  land,  it  received  a  good  dressing  of  farmyard  manure; 
while  the  rest,  that  was  under  beans,  among  the  stubble  of  which 
some  mustard  had  been  sown,  was  only  folded  over  with  the  sheep. 
The  results  seem  to  suggest  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  manure  wheat 
land  too  heavily,  as  it  makes  the  straw  rank  and  liable  to  go  down 
under  wind  and  rain ;  also  that  vetches  are  not  after  all  a  very 
exhausting  crop. 

The  weather  to-day  has  been  very  sultry,  and  heavy  rain  must 
have  fallen  within  a  few  miles  of  us,  as  a  thunderstorm  growled  and 
muttered  past  in  the  direction  of  Loddon,  but  left  us  untouched. 

A  friend  with  whom  I  was  talking  this  afternoon  about  the 
poverty  of  those  who  follow  the  profession  of  agriculture,  pointed 
out  that  here  and  there  are  people  who  seem  to  thrive  upon  it. 


AUGUST  315 

This  indeed  is  the  case,  for  in  our  district  I  know  of  two  men  who 
a  short  time  ago  had  little  or  nothing,  but  now  are  farming 
hundreds  of  acres  of  land.  How,  under  the  present  circumstances 
of  agriculture,  they  have  managed  to  get  their  "capital  together  is 
to  me  a  mystery.  I  can  only  suppose  that  it  has  been  done  by 
shrewd  and  successful  dealing,  or  possibly  such  men  may  be  the 
representatives  of  others  who  are  willing  to  entrust  them  with 
money.  Otherwise,  in  these  days  of  unprofitable  prices,  the  gulf 
between  a  farm  employing  two  horses  and  one  of  a  thousand  acres 
seems  too  wide  for  the  most  intelligent  person  to  span  in  the 
course  of  a  dozen  years. 

August  23. — To-day  the  men  have  been  tying  up  wheat, 
which  is  left  by  the  reaper  in  bundles  ready  to  their  hands,  and 
carting  pease  from  No.  37  into  the  All  Hallows  stackyard.  First 
the  pease,  now  brown  and  withered,  are  raked  into  lines,  where 
they  lie  in  lumps  as  they  left  the  scythe,  with  sufficient  space 
between  the  lines  for  a  waggon  to  travel.  Then  they  are  loaded 
on  to  the  waggon,  a  lump  being  lifted  at  each  forkful. 

While  the  carting  was  in  progress  I  had  an  opportunity  of 
watching  a  botfly,  or  horse-bee,  at  work.  The  insect  buzzes  about 
the  horse,  and  continually  touches  it  on  such  portions  of  its  frame 
as  lie  within  reach  of  the  animal's  tongue,  for  the  most  part  on  the 
inner  side  of  the  knees  and  upon  the  shoulders.  At  each  touch 
of  its  tail  there  appears  a  little  white  egg,  which  is  securely 
gummed  to  the  extremity  of  one  of  the  hairs  of  the  horse's  hide. 
How  is  the  hair  selected  so  surely  and  swiftly,  and  how  is  the  egg 
thus  fixed  to  it  without  fail  ?  This  egg  the  horse  when  licking 
himself  transfers  first  to  his  mouth  and  thence  to  his  stomach, 
where  it  affixes  itself  to  the  coats  of  the  membrane,  and  in  due  course 
becomes  a  bot.  In  the  following  spring  this  bot,  having  completed 
its  unsavoury  development,  and  being  now  a  maggoty  and  un- 
pleasant looking  object,  passes  from  the  stomach  to  the  earth, 
where  it  lies  until  it  is  transformed  into  a  fly  exactly  resembling 
that  which  buzzed  around  the  horse  last  autumn.     I  succeeded 


3i6  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

in  catching  this  particular  fly,  after  I  had  seen  it  lay  an  enormous 
number  of  eggs.  It  is  an  insect  greatly  resembling  a  bee,  with  an 
arched  tail,  or  egg-depositor,  and  very  large  and  transparent  eyes. 
Hood  assured  me  that  they  live  in  nests  like  ordinary  bees,  but  on 
this  point  I  think  that,  for  once  in  his  life.  Hood  is  mistaken. 

To-day  I  received  the  report  of  the  analyst  on  the  stomach  of 
the  foal,  which  was  sent  to  him  to  be  examined.  It  is  a  negative 
document,  for  he  can  tell  us  nothing  of  the  cause  of  death  beyond 
that  it  was  probably  brought  about  by  a  violent  vegetable  poison, 
of  which  we  were  already  convinced.  What  is  not  negative 
is  his  bill,  which,  instead  of  the  ten  shillings  that  I  under- 
stood I  should  have  to  pay,  amounts  to  three  guineas,  which 
sum,  however,  he  has  reduced  to  two  guineas  on  the  urgent 
representation  of  the  veterinary  who  forwarded  him  the  organ  to 
be  analysed.  I  daresay  that  the  charge  is  fair  and  reasonable 
enough,  although  the  investigations  of  the  chemist  leave  us  none 
the  wiser.  I  wish  to  point  out,  however,  that  such  fees  are  beyond 
the  means  of  the  farmer.  The  value  of  such  a  foal  as  I  lost,  when 
alive,  may  have  been  four  guineas,  and  half  that  amount  is  too  much 
to  pay  for  abortive  post-mortem  researches  on  its  stomach.  If  the 
Board  of  Agriculture,  or  the  County  Councils,  could  provide 
laboratories,  where  such  inquiries  might  be  carried  out  at  really 
cheap  rates,  it  would  be  a  great  boon  to  farmers.^ 

This  evening  the  air  was  very  close,  and  the  gnats  were  ex- 
traordinarily active.  Indeed,  the  sound  of  their  humming  re- 
minded me  much  of  that  of  the  mosquitoes  on  some  of  the  tropical 
rivers  in  Mexico  or  in  the  African  fever  districts.     If  watched,  these 

^  I  find,  what  I  did  not  know  at  the  time  I  wrote  the  above  passage,  that 
the  Royal  Agricultural  Society,  to  which  I  belong,  will  undertake  such  investi- 
gations for  its  members  at  very  reasonable  rates.  The  cost  of  an  examination 
of  viscera  for  all  vegetable  poisons  is  i/.,  and  the  highest  charge  in  the  scale 
for  more  complicated  operations  is  2/.  Charges  for  various  other  services, 
such  as  the  treatment  of  sick  animals,  the  inquiry  into  outbreaks  of  disease 
among  stock,  or  the  reporting  on  the  purity  of  samples  of  seeds,  &c.,  seem  to 
be  on  the  same  moderate  scale.  It  is  a  pity  that  so  few  farmers  know  where 
they  can  find  such  advantages. 


AUGUST  317 

gnats  may  be  observed  to  form  a  pillar  over  a  man's  head,  above 
which  they  rise  and  descend  as  the  fancy  takes  them,  or  in  ac- 
cordance with  aims  and  arrangements  that  we  do  not  understand. 
It  is,  I  think,  this  rise  and  fall  of  their  multitudes  that  produces 
such  very  curious  variations  in  the  noise  of  the  humming,  which  now 
sounds  quite  loud  and  angry,  and  now  seems  faint  and  far  away. 

August  27. — All  this  week  we  have  been  very  busy  with  the 
ordinary  routine  of  harvest  work,  which  has  gone  on  without 
mterruption  from  the  weather.  On  Wednesday  the  24th  we 
finished  carting  the  All  Hallows  pease,  and  carried  the  Baker's 
pease  into  Baker's  yard,  in  each  case  topping  the  sacks  with  oats. 
On  Thursday  morning,  strangely  enough,  there  was  a  slight  frost, 
and  the  men  engaged  in  mowing  that  portion  of  the  wheat  on  the 
All  Hallows  field.  No.  32,  which  is  too  laid  to  be  cut  by  the 
machine  were  quite  drenched  by  the  dew.  Afterwards  we  carted 
barley  from  the  Thwaite  field,  which  seems  to  be  a  fair  sample, 
and  a  bulkier  crop  than  I  expected. 

Yesterday  was  fine,  though  cloudy,  with  a  dropping  glass,  but 
to-day  the  weather  holds.  I  went  to  lunch  with  my  friend  and 
neighbour,  Mr.  Henry  Smith  of  Ellingham,  and  looked  over  his 
farm,  which  is  a  large  one,  for  he  has  about  eight  hundred  acres  in 
hand.  There  are  points  in  favour  of  farming  on  a  large  scale  ;  for 
instance,  Mr.  Smith  has  his  own  steam-engine,  and  thus  saves  the 
cost  of  thrashing.  Also,  he  is  able  to  cut  chaff  and  saw  timber 
with  economy  and  despatch.  Mr.  Smith  is  a  believer  in  sheep, 
and  owns  two  fine  flocks  of  ewes,  which  are  folded  about  the  lands, 
thus  saving  the  muck-cart  many  a  journey.  But  with  all  these 
advantages,  including  those  which  cannot  quite  be  estimated  of 
his  personal  intelligence,  experience,  and  supervision,  he  confided 
to  me  that,  so  far,  he  has  not  found  farming  an  absolute  Klondyke. 
More,  he  produced  his  books  to  prove  it,  and  very  clear  they  are, 
being  kept  upon  a  most  excellent  system.  He  has  thrashed  a 
little  wheat,  coming  off  some  rather  light,  sheep-tethered  land,  and 
it  runs  out  at  ten  coombs  the  acre ;  a  result  with  which  he  has 


3i8  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

every  cause  to  be  satisfied.  I  only  hope  that  my  own  will  do  as 
well. 

Near  to  the  Hall  in  the  park  at  Ellingham  stands  a  great 
poplar  tree,  on  which  the  lightning  fell  some  weeks  ago.  In 
this  instance  the  current  behaved  rather  strangely,  for,  lighting  on 
the  extremity  of  a  bough,  it  passed  round  and  round  it  and 
the  trunk,  leaving  grooves  such  as  might  have  been  cut  by  a 
carpenter,  until  it  came  to  a  strand  of  barbed  wire,  which  was 
fastened  to  the  bole  by  a  staple.  Tearing  out  this  staple,  it  fled 
along  the  wire  to  an  iron  stanchion,  down  which  it  descended  to 
the  earth,  burning  the  grass  and  taking  all  the  rust  off  the 
stanchion  as  it  went.  Luckily,  there  was  no  living  thing  beneath 
the  tree.  A  few  years  ago  Mr.  Smith  was  not  so  fortunate,  for 
six  or  seven  cattle  that  were  grazing  in  the  park,  which  seems  to 
be  a  favourite  playground  for  the  lightning,  were  destroyed  by  a 
single  flash.  They  were  found  with  foam  upon  their  mouths  and 
their  bodies  bent  into  a  bow,  as  though  by  tetanus  or  the  effects 
of  strychnine. 

This  is  the  third  time  in  my  life  that  I  have  known  lightning 
to  pass  round  and  round  trees  or  poles,  cutting  neat  spiral  grooves 
in  their  substance.  In  Ditchingham  Park,  however,  about  three 
years  ago,  it  played  a  stranger  trick,  for  in  this  instance  the  current 
travelled  down  the  centre  of  an  oak,  and  by  the  exercise  of  its 
gigantic  force  drove  the  heart  of  the  tree  through  the  outer  wood 
and  bark,  where  it  appeared  in  numberless  white  splinters.  Only 
once  did  I  ever  see  anything  resembling  the  result  produced  by 
that  stroke.  On  an  occasion  when  I  was  shipwrecked  the 
vessel,  of  about  i,ooo  tons  burden,  hung  upon  a  point  of  rock, 
with  sixty-fathom  water  beneath  her  stern.  Presently  her  back 
broke,  throwing  so  fearful  a  strain  on  to  the  mast  and  rigging 
that  something  had  to  give.  The  shrouds  would  not  part,  for  they 
were  of  steel  wire,  and  the  mast  did  not  snap,  because  the  pull 
upon  it  was  vertical  and  from  both  sides.  Therefore  under  the 
awful  pressure  the  very  fibre  of  the  wood  of  which  it  was  formed 
seemed  to  disintegrate,  at  any  rate   grey  splinters  forced  from 


AUGUST  319 

within  outwards  became  visible  all  over  its  varnished  surface,  to 
which  they  gave  a  frosted  appearance. 

Owing,  I  suppose,  to  the  proximity  of  the  river  bad  thunder- 
storms very  seldom  visit  this  house,  which  perhaps  is  providential, 
for  when  long  ago  I  was  first  acquainted  with  the  place,  I  found 
that  for  years  the  severed  end  of  the  lightning  conductor,  that  was 
broken  in  two  by  some  accident,  had  dangled  against  the  wall  of 
the  building  about  fifteen  feet  above  the  ground.  Had  a  flash  come 
down  it  ? — but  fortunately  it  never  did  !  The  story  reminds  me  of 
one  which  I  have  been  told  of  a  local  plumber,  who  volunteered 
to  fit  his  church  tower  with  a  lightning  conductor,  and  having 
brought  the  cable  to  ground,  in  order  to  make  a  tidy  job  of  it 
fitted  its  end  into  a  soda-water  bottle,  which  he  buried.  In  due 
course  the  lightning  descended  the  rod,  and  on  finding  itself 
cut  off  from  the  earth  by  the  non-conducting  glass,  fled  up  it 
again  and  through  the  church,  to  the  disturbance  of  the  congre- 
gation. 

On  one  occasion,  however,  I  remember  a  heavy  storm  here, 
that  is  as  storms  are  judged  in  this  country.  A  meeting  was 
going  on  in  the  house,  when  suddenly  the  speaker  was  silenced 
by  a  vivid  flash  and  a  crashing  peal  of  thunder.  I  was  sure  from 
a  certain  rending  sound  that  something  had  been  struck,  and  on 
going  out  after  the  rain  had  ceased  I  found  that  I  was  not 
mistaken.  About  one  hundred  yards  from  the  garden  stands  an 
elm  tree,  down  which  the  lightning  had  descended,  leaving  a 
broad  white  gash.  Further  investigations  revealed  a  very  badly 
scared  farm  boy.  No  wonder  that  he  was  frightened,  for  his  escape 
had  been  marvellous.  The  lad,  who  was  employed  mowing  down 
thistles  on  the  back  lawn,  when  it  began  to  rain  went  to  stand 
beneath  this  very  tree,  taking  his  scythe  with  him.  The  rain 
increasing  in  volume  and  the  water  beginning  to  drip  on  him 
through  the  leaves  he  determined  to  shelter  in  a  little  fowl-house 
which  stood  not  more  than  ten  paces  away.  As  he  entered  the 
fowl-house  the  lightning  struck  the  tree,  passing  into  the  ground 
at  the  very  spot  where  he  had  been  standing  a  few  seconds  before, 


320  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

and  scattering  fragments  of  bark  and  wood  on  to  the  tin  roof  of  the 
hut.  This  was  the  same  boy  who,  as  I  think  I  have  mentioned, 
once  lay  for  an  hour  under  the  bull's  manger,  while  that  animal, 
having  first  knocked  him  there,  sniffed  and  pawed  at  his  prostrate 
form.  If  he  is  not  now  a  firm  believer  in  a  protecting  Providence 
he  must  be  of  a  singularly  sceptical  turn  of  mind. 

But,  after  all,  the  tempests  which  we  experience  here  compared 
to  those  of  Africa  are  much  as  the  floating  models  on  the  lake  at 
the  Earl's  Court  Exhibition  would  be  to  a  fleet  of  ironclads  in 
action.  A  friend  once  informed  me  that  he  was  actually  driven 
out  of  a  certain  district  in  East  Africa  by  the  frequency  and 
fearful  violence  of  the  thunderstorms,  which  so  affected  his  nerves 
that  he  could  neither  shoot  nor  sleep ;  and  personal  experience 
proves  to  me  that  they  can  be  bad  further  to  the  south.  A  gentle- 
man whom  I  know  told  me  that  once  he  was  riding  along  a  road 
in  Natal,  at  a  little  distance  behind  a  waggon  full  of  people.  A 
thunderstorm  came  on,  and  after  a  vivid  flash  the  waggon  stopped. 
He  rode  up  to  it,  and  found  that  of  its  occupants,  who  had  huddled 
together  beneath  the  tilt  to  escape  the  rain,  no  less  than  seven 
were  dead.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  I  have  never  seen  anything  so 
dreadful  as  this,  although  I  have  had  some  experiences  of 
lightning.  Once,  accompanied  by  my  wife  and  a  woman  servant, 
I  drove  a  'spider'  at  full  gallop  before  an  advancing  storm. 
Reaching  the  inn  we  handed  over  the  horses  to  some  Kaffirs,  and 
ran  for  shelter.  As  we  entered  the  door  the  lightning  struck  in 
the  courtyard,  not  more  than  a  dozen  yards  behind  us.  The 
conduct  of  the  maid — a  middle-aged  and  determined  woman—  on 
this  occasion  was  amusing.  In  her  terror  she  lost  her  head  and 
informed  her  mistress  that  she  was  'no  lady'  because  she 
remained  calm;  under  these  circumstances  a  'lady,'  it  appears, 
ought  to  have  screamed  and  gone  into  hysterics. 

On  another  occasion  I  was  on  duty  in  court  at  Pretoria,  when 
there  came  such  a  fearful,  flash  that  everybody  there,  including  the 
judge  and  myself,  sprang  to  his  feet.  It  transpired  that  the 
lightning  had  struck  the  next  house  and  actually  cut  or  shook  a 


AUGUST  32^ 

child  out  of  its  mother's  arms,  but,  strange  to  say,  without  doing 
more  than  stupefy  either  mother  or  child.  Here  is  a  second 
instance  of  lightning  producing  stupefaction  without  doing 
physical  harm.  One  night  at  Pretoria  I  was  kept  very  late  at 
my  office  attending  to  some  official  business.  During  the  evening 
a  thunderstorm  passed  over  the  town,  but  it  cleared  away  by 
midnight,  and  I  did  not  reach  home  before  three  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  On  entering  the  sitting-room,  as  he  is  a  very 
abstemious  man,  I  was  astonished  to  see  the  friend  with  whom  I 
lived  hanging  over  the  arm  of  an  easy  chair  apparently  quite  intoxi- 
cated. I  roused  him,  and  muttering  something  he  staggered  off 
to  bed.  Next  morning  he  told  me  that  the  last  thing  he  remem- 
bered was  sitting  in  the  chair  and  seeing  a  bright  flash  of  light. 
Afterwards,  on  going  to  inspect  the  hen-house  which  we  were 
building  at  a  distance  of  about  fifteen  paces  from  the  cottage,  we 
found  several  of  the  poles  neatly  grooved  round  by  the  lightning 
in  the  fashion  of  the  tree  at  EUingham.  It  must  have  been 
the  shock  and  proximity  of  this  flash  which  stupefied  my  friend, 
for  I  do  not  think  that  it  entered  the  house. 

In  short,  in  Africa  the  lightning  is  a  thing  which  even  Ajax 
would  scarce  have  ventured  to  defy.  If  the  traveller  is  overtaken 
by  a  tempest  on  the  open  veld,  the  best  thing  that  he  can  do  is  to 
get  off"  his  horse,  or  out  of  his  cart,  and  lie  down  upon  the  ground. 
It  was  through  neglect  of  this  precaution  that  a  gentleman 
whom  I  knew  was  killed,  as  he  drove  along  the  road  in  his  spider. 
His  name  was  Carter,  and  he  kept  an  hotel  in  Pretoria.  He  had 
been  educated  at  Eton,  or  one  of  the  other  large  public  schools,  and 
I  think  that  some  tankards  which  he  had  won  in  the  school  sports 
stood  upon  a  shelf  in  the  bar  or  sitting-room  of  the  hotel.  If  I 
remember  rightly,  the  companion  who  was  with  Mr.  Carter  in  the 
spider  escaped.  In  the  same  way,  while  I  was  in  Natal,  a  flash 
struck  near  a  man  and  wife  sleeping  side  by  side.  One  was  taken 
and  the  other  left. 

But  of  tales  of  the  doings  of  lightning  in  South  Africa  there  is 
no  end,  so  with  these  samples  I  will  leave  the  subject. 

Y 


322  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

August  29. — Yesterday  being  Sunday  I  employed  the  after- 
noon in  walking  over  the  farm  at  Bedingham,  in  order  to  learn 
how  they  were  getting  on  with  the  harvest.  Generally  I  find 
something  at  Bedingham  that  interests  my  bucolic  mind,  and 
yesterday  the  discoveries  were  two  :  one  satisfactory  and  the 
other  the  reverse.  On  the  new  pasture,  No.  19,  that  is  sown 
with  the  deep-rooted  herbs,  the  young  cattle  are  grazing  upon  the 
aftermath  or  eddish  which  has  grown  since  the  hay  was  carried. 
I  watched  them,  and  was  glad  to  see  that  whenever  they  came 
to  a  plant  of  chicory  they  ate  it  with  relish  almost  down  to  the 
ground.  The  second  sight  I  saw  was  that  of  long  streams  of 
thistle  seeds  being  borne  by  a  stiff  breeze  on  to  my  land  from 
territories  in  the  possession  of  neighbouring  powers.  I  believe 
that  it  has  been  declared  by  competent  courts  of  law  that  an 
action  lies  against  a  neighbour  whose  fields  produce  an  un- 
reasonable crop  of  weeds  to  the  detriment  of  other  land  which  is 
well  farmed.  I  never  heard,  however,  of  such  a  suit  being 
brought  in  East  Anglia.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  damage  would 
be  very  difficult  to  prove. 

To-day  has  been  cold,  and  during  the  afternoon  the  threaten- 
ing rain  fell  in  showers.  About  eleven  o'clock  the  machine 
stopped  cutting  the  wheat  on  Baker's,  where  it  works  to  perfection, 
for  the  corn  here  is  upstanding  and  not  too  thick,  and  we  began 
to  cart  the  black  oats  from  the  glebe  field.  No.  40.  These  we 
secured,  but  the  drizzle  prevented  us  from  carrying  the  white  oats 
from  No.  39.  Oats  are  grain  that  must  be  carted  quite  dry,  for 
if  damp  they  heat  and  spoil.  Wheat,  on  the  other  hand  — espe- 
cially if  it  stands  on  the  stack  for  some  months  before  thrashing — 
may  be  carried  when  damp  without  injury  to  the  corn.  Buck 
tells  me  that  he  has  carted  wheat  in  a  rain  so  heavy  that  he  was 
soaked  to  the  skin,  and  that  on  being  thrashed  the  grain  was 
found  to  have  taken  no  harm. 

This  morning  I  was  talking  to  the  bricklayer  who  is  rebuilding 
one  of  the  cottages  on  Baker's  Farm  for  the  owner,  Mr.  Carr.  He 
gave  me  a  brick,  which  he  found  built  into  the  wall,  which  has 


AUGUST 


323 


cut  upon  it,  In  antique  figures,  the  date  1393.  This  brick,  which 
is  of  our  modern  shape,  weighs  five  pounds  eleven  ounces,  or 
originally  nearly  six  pounds,  for  some  portions  of  it  are  broken 
away ;  and  I  suppose,  from  their  shape  and  character,  that 
before  the  clay  was  set  into  the  kiln  to  bake  the  figures  were  cut, 
in  1393,  and  not  at  any  subsequent  date.  But  the  reader  may 
judge  for  himself,  for  below  is  printed  a  reproduction  of  them. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  so  long  as  five  hundred  and  five 
years  ago  housen  stood  at  this  spot,  where  meet  four  cross-roads 
and  a  path  that  is  now  a  lane.     Doubtless,  however,  these  dwell- 


ings have  been  several  times  rebuilt  during  that  long  period  of 
time,  although  the  mason  tells  me  that,  so  far  as  he  can  judge, 
this  particular  brick  seems  never  to  have  been  disturbed  since  it 
was  first  set  in  place.  Here  is  an  example  of  the  great  antiquity 
of  our  country  life  in  England.  Doubtless,  five  centuries  ago,  as 
to-day,  men  lived  in  cottages  at  this  very  spot.  Doubtless,  as 
they  do  now,  the  four  roads  met  there  and  the  lane  ran  down  to 
the  marshes ;  and  the  seed  was  sown  and  the  crops  were  gathered 
on  the  field  above  as  I  gather  them  this  very  harvest-tide. 

Oh  !  if  only  the  place  could  tell  all  its  story,  with  the  detail 
which  would  be   necessary   to   make   us   understand  it,   what  a 

Y  2 


324  A    FARMER'S    YEAR 

story  that  would  be !  A  humble  tale,  perhaps — a  tale  of  little 
things  and  obscure  lives,  and  yet  how  fascinating  !  When  we 
consider  bygone  ages  we  are  apt  to  dwell  only  upon  the  histories 
of  distinguished  individuals  and  the  records  of  great  and  startling 
occurrences.  Yet  these  do  not  really  make  up  the  past.  Notable 
men  are  rare ;  there  be  very  few  in  any  age  who  can  lift  their  heads 
and  voices  high  enough  above  the  raving  crowd  for  the  world 
to  see  and  hear  them,  and  great  events  occur  only  from  time  to 
time.  But  behind  these  Titans  existed  the  dim  multitudes  of  the 
people — those  whose  qualities  and  characters  really  fashioned  the 
nation  for  good  or  ill;  our  forefathers,  whose  instincts  and 
strivings  built  up  the  empire  we  inherit,  in  whom  lay  the  weight 
and  influence  which  brought  about  the  revolutions  of  our  history, 
and  from  whom  were  produced  those  strong  characters  that  carried 
out  their  will  and  with  whose  names  we  are  still  familiar.  But  of 
all  these  forgotten  humble  hordes  there  remains  nothing  but  our- 
selves, who,  by  the  mysterious  descent  of  blood,  continue  their 
existence,  and  such  poor  memorials  as  are  inscribed  by  some 
long-dead  hand  upon  this  imperishable  clay. 

What  a  strange  instinct  it  is,  by  the  way,  that  prompts  men 
to  try  to  perpetuate  some  little  token  of  their  existence  and 
individuality  upon  substances  not  likely  to  be  destroyed,  in  the 
hope,  I  suppose,  that  in  a  far-off  future  age  other  men  will  unearth 
them  and  think  such  thoughts  as  I  set  down  upon  this  sheet.  Is 
it  not,  in  fact,  the  feeble  and  half-unconscious  striving  or  revolt 
against  the  oblivion  which  awaits  us  all — a  vv^eak  but  quite  human 
desire  for  recollection  in  the  unshaped  future,  for  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  once  beneath  the  same  eternal  sun  they,  the  for- 
gotten ones,  were  born,  suffered,  worked,  and  died?  In  Egypt, 
among  the  wreck  of  buildings  reared  thousands  of  years  ago,  I  have 
found  such  relics  of  those  whose  toil  created  them  ;  in  breaking 
up  an  old  floor  in  these  very  rooms  I  have  noted  the  name  of  the 
carpenter  who  laid  it  rudely  scrawled  upon  a  board.  And  see 
how  the  tendency  continues.  Myself,  I  remember  writing  my 
ow«  name,  the  date,  and  a  Latin  inscription,  with  the  record  of 


AUGUST  325 

my  repairs,  upon  the  back  of  an  oak  panel  that  is  set  into  the  hall 
of  this  house,  thinking  the  while  that,  long  after  I  am  dust,  it 
might  prove  of  passing  interest  to  some  unborn  creature  who  may 
chance  to  be  present  when  at  length  the  place  falls  into  ruin,  or  is 
pulled  down  piecemeal. 

Another  curiosity  about  these  cottages  is  that  the  two  possess 
but  one  brick  oven  between  them,  which,  for  reasons  too  long  to 
explain,  was,  I  am  convinced,  common  to  both.  What  neighbours' 
quarrels,  what  small  but  very  active  bitternesses  may  not  have 
arisen  during  the  last  few  centuries  over  the  use  of  that  oven  ! 
If  some  experience  of  such  differences  is  any  guide,  these  must 
have  been  many.  Those  who  frequent  a  bench  of  magistrates 
will  know  them  well. 

These  cottages,  at  their  last  reconstruction,  which  I  should 
judge  to  have  taken  place  a  hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hundred 
years  ago,  were  largely  built  of  stud-work  framed  on  sapling 
boughs  measuring  about  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter,  and 
lashed  to  the  roof  beams  with  string.  This  string,  of  which  I 
secured  some  pieces,  is  for  the  most  part  still  fairly  sound,  and  of 
a  very  strong  and  even  make. 

August  31. — Yesterday  was  fine,  so  the  rain  of  the  previous 
afternoon  proved  but  a  passing  shower.  We  finished  cutting, 
tying,  and  shocking  the  wheat  on  Baker's,  and  mowing  that  on 
All  Hallows,  which  has  proved  a  most  troublesome  and  exhaust- 
ing task,  it  being  matted  together  by  the  weeds  which  have  grown 
through  it  as  it  lay  upon  the  ground. 

To-day,  the  last  of  the  month,  is  still  fine.  Truly  we  are 
enjoying  a  harvest  to  be  thankful  for.  We  have  been  carting  the 
vetches  from  No.  2 1  and  the  white  oats  from  the  glebe  land. 

This  evening,  standing  on  a  high  ridge  in  the  Pit  field,  I 
watched  the  rising  of  the  harvest  moon.  She  appeared  in  an 
absolutely  cloudless  sky,  a  huge  and  lambent  ball,  pale  at  first, 
but  growing  brighter  with  each  passing  minute,  till  her  moun- 
tain ranges  and  valleys  showed  clearly  upon  the  shining  disc. 


326  A   PARMER'S    YEAR 

Looked  at  from  my  standpoint,  there,  on  the  top  of  Hollow 
Hill,  the  scene  was  singularly  beautiful  and  solemn.  Below  me 
lay  the  village,  backed  by  the  windmill  with  its  tall  sails  at  rest, 
while  to  the  left  the  wide  and  shadowed  sweep  of  the  Waveney 
valley  stretched  on  and  on  until  it  lost  itself  in  gloom.  Little  by 
little  the  dusk  gathered,  dimming  and  blotting  out  the  less  salient 
features  of  the  landscape.  Now  I  could  no  longer  distinguish  the 
boughs  of  the  poplars,  showing  like  a  net  hung  against  the  sky, 
and  now  the  poplars  themselves  had  melted  away.  Then,  as  the 
sky  darkened,  like  stars  appearing,  one  by  one  the  lights  of  the 
village  began  to  glow,  and  the  evening  hush  of  Nature  deepened 
into  perfect  silence,  for  at  this  season  the  birds  have  ceased  to  sing. 

Very  lovely  were  the  colours  while  the  twilight  lingered.  In 
front  stood  the  golden  sheaves  of  corn,  contrasting  sharply  with 
the  shining  green  of  the  mangold  tops,  beyond  which  stretched 
the  expanse  of  stubble  land,  dead  pale  beneath  the  pallid  sky,  and 
on  its  borders  a  group  of  yellow  stacks. 

Soon,  as  I  watched,  the  air  grew  chill  and  autumnal,  with 
just  a  hint  of  frost  in  it,  giving  warning  that  it  was  time  to  go  ; 
which  I  was  loth  to  do.  for  never  can  I  remember,  at  any  rate  in 
these  latitudes,  seeing  the  moon  look  more  grand  and  perfect 
than  she  did  to-night.  Doubtless,  however,  when  beneath  this 
ridge  of  ground  whereon  I  stood  lay  a  swamp  tenanted  by 
monstrous  reptiles,  she  shone  just  as  sweetly  with  no  human  eye 
to  note  her.  When  the  deep  sea  rolled  here,  her  broad  rays 
broke  upon  its  bosom;  when  from  century  to  century  the 
thick-ribbed  ice  ground  and  gripped  this  land,  its  glaciers 
gleamed  blue  in  that  soft  light;  and  when  man,  having  gathered 
his  last  harvest,  has  returned  to  the  Lord  of  harvests,  still  that  light, 
piercing  the  gulf  of  airless  space,  will  flow  upon  this  hillside,  and 
creep  down  yonder  valley,  grown  black  and  dead,  and  desolate. 

The  reflection  is  old  and  trite,  but  perhaps  it  is  as  well  to 
remember  from  time  to  time  what  gnats  we  are — gnats  humming 
in  an  autumn  twilight,  forgetful  of  the  day  behind  us  and 
without  knowledge  of  the  dawn  to  be. 


327 


SEPTEMBER 

September  i. — To-day  we  held  our  Brewster's  Sessions  at 
Bungay  when,  as  no  complaints  were  made,  all  the  licenses  were 
renewed.  According  to  the  calculation  of  the  superintendent  of 
police  there  is  in  Bungay  a  licensed  house  to  every  io6  of  the 
population,  infants  in  arms  included,  and  this  without  reckoning 
the  wine-merchants  or  the  establishments  which  trade  in  alcoholic 
liquors  by  virtue  of  what  are  known  as  *  grocers'  licenses.'  In  the 
parishes  of  the  district  things  are  little  better,  for  here  there  is 
a  licensed  house  to  every  207  of  the  population.  It  will  be 
observed  that  in  Bungay  and  its  neighbourhood  the  toper  need 
not  go  thirsty  for  lack  of  opportunity  to  quench  his  drought. 

The  superintendent  also  read  his  report  for  the  year  on  the 
crime  statistics  of  the  district.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  they  show 
a  marked  and  progressive  diminution,  owing  chiefly,  I  believe,  to 
the  spread  of  education  among  the  classes  from  which  spring  the 
majority  of  criminals.  For  instance,  I  can  remember  that  when 
first  I  served  upon  this  Bench  we  were  often  called  upon  to 
deal  with  charges  of  brutal  assault,  cases  in  which  people  had 
been  got  down  and  kicked  or  knocked  about  with  heavy  sticks, 
and  so  forth.  Now  we  have  but  few  of  these  offences,  a  fact 
that  cannot  be  attributed  solely  to  the  measures  which  we  took 
to  put  a  stop  to  crimes  against  the  person. 

This  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham,  where  the  harvest  is 
going  on  well.  There  remains,  however,  a  good  deal  to  be  secured, 
including  the  beans,  the  oats,  a  little  wheat,  and  one  field  of 
barley.  The  bottom  in  the  last  laid  pasture,  No.  21,  on  which 
the  barley  has  now  been  cut,  is  looking  really  splendid.     All  the 


328  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

seeds  seem  to  have  taken,  not  excepting  the  chicory  and  other 
herbs,  which  appear  everywhere  among  the  grasses. 

September  3. — The  layer  in  the  barley  which  we  were 
cutting  at  Baker's  yesterday  on  No.  41  is  so  thick  that  the 
straw,  if  well  saved,  will  really  be  almost  as  good  as  hay.  Take 
them  all  round,  the  crops  are  wonderfully  heavy  this  year.  There 
is  so  much  of  what  the  men  call  *  boolk  '  that  the  difficulty  is  to 
get  them  on  to  the  stack. 

To-day  I  went  out  shooting  with  a  neighbour.  The  partridges 
seem  to  be  rather  scarce,  and  the  sun  was  terribly  hot.  Never  do 
I  remember  feeling  the  effects  of  heat  and  thirst  in  this  country 
more  than  I  did  towards  the  close  of  our  tramp  this  afternoon. 
In  a  day's  September  shooting  the  sportsman  walks  over  a  good 
many  miles,  especially  if  he  happens  to  be  the  right-  or  left-hand 
gun.  Partridge-shooting  in  a  hot  autumn  is  very  different  from 
partridge-driving  or  covert-shooting  later  in  the  year,  when  the  gun 
merely  moves  from  place  to  place  and  stands  until  the  birds  come 
over  him.  I  am  inclined  to  believe,  also,  that  the  advent  of  cycles 
(or  is  it  perchance  the  advent  of  age  ?)  makes  people  suffer  more 
from  the  exertion  of  walking  than  they  were  wont  to  do.  All  the 
summer  long  one  has  been  accustomed  to  roll  from  spot  to  spot 
upon  a  bicycle — I  even  use  mine  for  going  about  the  farm — so  that 
when  it  comes  to  a  long  day's  honest  trudging,  with  many  a  fence 
to  scramble  through  and  no  friendly  wheel  to  help,  one  feels  the 
change.  It  is  certain  that  people  who,  before  the  invention 
of  these  Heaven-sent  machines,  were  devoted  to  walking  now  walk 
no  more,  and  I  believe  that  soon  it  will  be  difficult  to  induce 
the  children  who  are  growing  up  to-day  to  put  one  foot  before 
the  other.  The  same  thing  may  be  noticed  in  countries  where 
everybody  rides.  Thus,  in  Africa  I  have  known  men  have 
their  horses  saddled  in  order  to  carry  them  a  couple  of 
hundred  yards. 

To-day  we  are  busy  getting  up  barley,  and  have  finished 
building  the  wheat  stack  at  All  Hallows. 


SEPTEMBER  329 

September  6. — Sunday  was  again  very  hot,  but  yesterday  the 
sky  became  overcast,  so  we  took  the  opportunity  to  push  forward 
with  the  cutting  of  the  beans  on  No.  26  and  with  the  carting  of 
those  that  are  already  down.  Beans  are  things  which  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  deal  with  in  hot  weather,  as  the  sun  causes  the  pods  to  open 
and  the  grain  to  shed  out.  When  dead  ripe,  also,  they  are  a 
strange-looking  crop,  especially  if,  as  is  the  case  with  this  field,  they 
chance  to  have  grown  very  tall.  I  recommend  them  to  the  attention 
of  Mr.  Horton,  the  artist,  who,  with  strange  success,  uses  natural 
objects  in  furtherance  of  a  symbolical  art  that,  to  my  mind,  is  full 
of  grim  and  spiritual  imagination,  and  to  Mr.  Sime,  to  whom  the 
gift  is  given  of  portraying  scenes  connected  with  what  the  old 
Egyptians  called  the  Underworld  as  surely  man  seldom  did  before 
him.  Seen  beneath  a  sullen  sky,  or  in  the  light  of  an  angry  sunset, 
there  is  something  forbidding  about  a  large  expanse  of  their  black, 
ungainly  stalks,  dead,  but  still  standing.  The  crop  would  be 
eminently  appropriate  to  the  infernal  fields,  which  one  might 
expect  to  approach  through  an  avenue  of  shivering  and  melan- 
choly blue  gums,  or  of  huge  cedars  hung  with  greybeard  Spanish 
moss,  such  as  the  traveller  may  see  in  the  home  of  the  ill- 
fated  Emperor  Montezuma  at  Chapoltepec,  in  Mexico,  and  lurid 
'  nepenthe '  plants. 

To-day  I  heard  by  chance  that  in  the  course  of  the  repairs  of 
Mettingham  church,  in  this  neighbourhood,  a  skeleton  had  been 
discovered  very  peculiarly  disposed.  Knowing  that  such  things 
are  apt  to  be  disturbed  or  quickly  bricked  up  out  of  sight,  I 
started  at  once  to  investigate  the  matter.  Arriving  at  the  church 
just  as  the  workmen  were  leaving,  I  asked  them  if  they  knew 
where  the  bones  lay,  but  they  had  no  knowledge  of  any  bones, 
and  could  only  show  me  one  or  two  ancient  stone  coffin  lids. 
Then  they  departed  and  we  began  to  search  on  our  own  account, 
but  for  a  long  while  without  results.  At  length  my  companion 
called  to  me  that  she  had  found  them.  On  the  south  side  of  the 
church  is  an  annexe  or  chapel,  dating  apparently  from  the  fifteenth 
century,  and  in  the  wall  of  this  annexe  a  recess,  resembling  the 


330  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

canopies  that  we  see  erected  over  tombs,  but  not  more  than  fifteen 
inches  deep.  Whether  it  was  ever  larger  of  course  I  cannot  say. 
In  this  little  recess  is  a  stone  slab  about  the  width  of  an  ordinary 
bench,  out  of  the  centre  of  which  a  V-shaped  piece  had  been 
broken.  On  lifting  this  fragment  a  cavity  appeared  beneath,  and 
in  the  cavity  lay  the  skeleton  of  a  man  packed  in  a  space  of  about 
three  feet  in  length  by  one  foot  in  width.  Here  the  bones  had 
been  arranged  in  some  past  age  and  with  great  care,  the  skull 
being  placed  in  the  centre  of  the  pile.  Unless  the  outer  wall 
has  been  altered  it  is  obvious  that  the  corpse  cannot  have 
been  laid  thus  for  burial,  for  even  supposing  that  our  ancestors 
were  willing  to  suffer  a  decaying  body  to  be  packed  away  above 
the  level  of  the  ground  in  such  a  position  that  the  gases  arising 
from  it  must  have  percolated  into  the  church — which  is  possible, 
for  in  those  days  people  were  not  particular — it  could  not  have 
been  accommodated  in  so  small  a  receptacle.  There  were  no 
traces  of  any  coffin.  The  remains  are  those  of  a  large  man  of 
about  fifty  years  of  age,  for  the  teeth  seem  somewhat  worn,  and 
his  femurs  show  that  he  was  old  enough  to  suffer  severely  from 
the  gout.  Whose  they  can  be  and  how  they  came  here  must,  I  fear, 
remain  a  matter  for  conjecture,  though  doubtless  this  is  the 
skeleton  of  some  important  person  who  was  buried  a  very  long 
time  ago,  since  it  is  quite  yellow  with  age. 

Are  these  perchance  the  bones  of  a  Crusader  or  of  a  gentleman 
who  was  killed  in  the  mediaeval  French  wars,  which  were  collected 
and  sent  home  in  a  bag  or  box  for  interment  in  his  native  place  ? 
Some  of  them,  especially  the  ribs,  are  frayed  and  knocked  about 
at  the  ends,  a  fact  which  would  go  to  support  such  a  theory,  for 
this  damage  might  have  occurred  in  the  course  of  long  travel. 
Or  is  it  possible  that  here  are  the  relics  of  a  saint  that  once  lay 
before  the  altar,  but  in  the  Reformation  times  were  moved  and 
hidden  away  in  this  hole  to  save  them  from  desecration  ?  It  is  a 
mystery,  and  a  mystery  it  must  remain,  for  the  records  throw  no 
light  upon  its  secret.  Now  the  slab  is  cemented  down,  and  if 
ever  it  should  be  lifted  again  hundreds  of  years  hence,  doubtless  the 


SEPTEMBER  ^3* 

grizzly  remnants  which  it  covers  will  once  more  excite  the  interest 
and  wonder  of  the  antiquaries  of  the  future. 

There  was  a  great  castle  at  Mettingham,  whereof  the  gateway 
and  some  fragments  of  the  keep  still  stand.  It  was  founded  by 
Sir  John  de  Norwich,  under  a  license  granted  by  Edward  III.  in 
1342.  Later  it  became  a  monastery,  and  the  keep  was  converted 
into  a  residence  for  the  masters  of  Mettingham  College,  and  after- 
wards, about  1750,  into  a  farmhouse.  Suckling  quotes  an  entry 
from  the  register  of  Mettingham  dating  from  the  Commonwealth, 
when  the  custody  of  such  documents  appears  to  have  been  trans- 
ferred to  laymen.  It  is  worth  transcribing,  showing,  as  it  does, 
what  was  the  bucolic  idea  of  a  joke  in  the  year  1653  : 

'  Mettingham  Register  Booke. 

'  Wherein  are  written  all  the  Marriages,  Burths,  and  Burialls, 
according  to  the  late  Act  of  Parliament  made  the  22  day  of 
September,  1653. 

'  Richard  Stannard,  of  the  same  towne,  in  the  Countie  of  Suff. 
Gent.,  approved  by  us,  whose  handes  are  here  under  subscribed 
accordinge  to  the  choice  of  him  made  by  the  Inhabitants  of  the 
said  Parish,  to  have  the  keeping  of  the  Booke,  and  sworne  to 
performe  the  Office  of  a  Register  accordinge  to  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment made  in  the  yeare  of  our  Lord  God  one  thousand  sixe  hun- 
dred fifty  and  three. 

Simon  Suckboytle  Jumping  Jones 

Nasty  Nan  Bounty  Bridg- 

JoHN  Gingerbread  Dick  Devill 
Halfbrickt  Man 

Inhabitants  of  Utopia.' 

The  reader  will  please  observe  the  signatures. 
The  difference  between  the  bulk  of  the  crops  this  year  and 
last   year   is   extraordinary.      So   plentiful   is   the  straw  that,  as 


332  A    FARMER'S    YEAR 

Peachey  said  to  me  to-day, '  Carting  don't  fare  to  be  no  manner  of 
use.'  To  give  one  example  :  last  year  it  took  the  produce  of 
about  twelve  acres  of  land  to  fill  the  All  Hallows  barn  with  barley, 
whereas  this  year  the  crop  from  under  seven  acres  is  all  that  it 
will  hold. 

September  8. — Yesterday  we  were  carting  barley  and  wheat 
on  Baker's,  and  on  going  over  the  field  I  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  we  cannot  finish  harvest  for  another  week,  even  if  the  weather 
holds.  It  was  very  hot  and  dry,  and  to-day  is  still  hotter.  The 
sun  has  a  burning  quality  about  it,  owing,  I  suppose,  to  the  thin 
parched  atmosphere  through  which  its  rays  penetrate-  -the  kind  of 
quality,  I  imagine,  that  gives  people  sunstroke.  It  is  hard,  how- 
ever, to  say  what  does  produce  sunstroke,  for  in  Southern  Africa, 
where  the  sun  is  very  hot,  I  never  heard  of  a  case  of  it,  and  during 
all  the  years  that  I  lived  there  I  wore  nothing  except  an  ordinary 
cloth  or  felt  hat,  whereas  for  the  last  few  days  I  have  been  glad 
to  fill  the  crown  of  a  Panama  straw  with  cabbage  leaves. 

Here  is  a  curious  instance  of  the  power  of  an  English  sun.  In  a 
Norfolk  village  with  which  I  am  acquainted  lived  a  man,  a  retired 
soldier,  who,  when  serving  in  India,  had  married  a  native  woman, 
and  brought  her  home  to  England.  This  woman,  while  working 
in  the  fields  at  harvest  time,  was  struck  by  the  sun  and  died. 
Certainly  it  seems  strange  that  she,  who  had  passed  her  youth 
beneath  its  most  terrific  rays,  should  have  fallen  a  victim  to  them 
here  in  foggy  Britain. 

To-day  we  made  an  attempt  to  use  the  reaper  to  cut  the 
barley  on  All  Hallows  field,  No.  36.  It  proved  a  total  failure,  and 
had  to  be  abandoned,  for  not  only  do  the  horses  tread  the  corn 
a  good  deal,  but  the  straw,  being  twisted  and  bowed,  the  knives 
snip  off  an  enormous  number  of  ears  quite  close  to  the  grain.  In 
walking  round  after  the  machine  I  picked  up  a  quantity  of  these, 
which  in  all  probability  will  be  an  utter  loss,  as  the  rake  will  not 
rake  them  and  the  fork  will  not  lift  them.  To  cut  this  barley 
with  the  reaper  would  mean  the  loss  of  at  least  two  coomb  an 


SEPTEMBER  333 

acre,  but  I  am  told  that  the  machine  does  well  enough  where  the 
straw  stands  up  strong  and  straight. 

Sir  William  Crookes,  in  his  presidential  address  delivered  yester- 
day to  the  British  Association,  draws  a  fearsome  picture  of  coming 
wheat  famines,  which,  if  we  had  all  of  us  a  proper  respect  for  science, 
ought  to  turn  our — or  rather  our  children's — hair  grey,  for  I  do  not 
gather  that  the  present  generation  need  fear  death  from  hunger. 
He  tells  us  that  '  a  permanently  higher  price  for  wheat  is,  I  fear, 
a  calamity  which  must  ere  long  be  faced.'  It  is  also  a  calamity 
which  many  farmers  would  face  without  dismay.  He  points  out 
that  in  the  United  Kingdom  we  grow  25  per  cent,  and 
import  75  per  cent,  of  the  total  amount  of  the  wheat  we 
consume  annually,  and  asks,  with  good  reason,  how  it  is  proposed 
to  safeguard  the  country  from  starvation  in  the  event  of  a  hostile 
combination  of  European  nations  against  us,  or  of  any  other 
accident  preventing  the  arrival  of  our  foreign  food  supply.  His 
own  address  furnishes  a  possible  answer,  for  from  it  it  appears  that 
8,250,000  acres  of  land  will  grow  all  the  corn  our  people  require 
for  food  ;  the  total  area  of  the  United  Kingdom  being,  I  believe, 
about  70,000,000  acres.  I  suggest  that  the  way  to  'safeguard  the 
country '  is  by  means  of  a  bounty,  or  in  any  other  fashion,  to  make 
it  profitable  to  farmers  to  put  that  8,000,000  and  odd  acres  under 
wheat,  not  an  overwhelmingly  large  proportion  out  of  the  total 
acreage  available.  That  it  is  prices  and  prices  alone  which  have 
caused  the  wheat  area  to  shrink  so  much  in  this  kingdom  I  think 
I  can  prove. 

In  1852 — I  quote  from  Mr.  Henry  Rew's  pamphlet  named 
'  The  Agricultural  Position  of  To-day  ' — the  acreage  under  wheat 
in  the  United  Kingdom  was  4,058,731,  and  in  1885,  2,553,000, 
the  population  in  the  intervening  period  having  increased  by 
8,500,000,  while  the  wheat  acerage  during  the  same  period  declined 
by  1,500,000.  But  this  is  not  all.  According  to  the  Agricultural 
Returns,  the  wheat  area  in  the  United  Kingdom  in  1897  had 
further  decreased  to  1,889,161  acres,  whereas  we  shall  be  fairly 
safe   in  assuming  that  the  population  has  increased  by  another 


334  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

3,000,000.  It  appears,  therefore,  that  we  grow  less  than  half  of 
the  wheat  that  we  grew  fifty  years  ago,  although  the  number  of 
mouths  to  eat  it  has  multiplied  enormously. 

It  will,  I  think,  be  admitted  that  this  cumulative  result  is  due 
purely  to  the  fact  that  wheat  production  no  longer  pays.^  If  the 
nation  wishes  to  be  assured  of  a  home  supply  sufficient  to  its  needs, 
the  remedy  lies  in  its  own  hands.  But  while  wheat  comes  in 
without  let  or  hindrance  and  at  very  cheap  rates  from  abroad  it  is 
not  probable  that  the  matter  will  be  so  much  as  taken  into  con- 
sideration. My  own  view,  indeed,  is  that  in  face  of  the  pitiful  price 
commanded  by  this  cereal  and  the  rapid  shrinkage  of  the  supply 
of  labour  necessary  to  grow  it,  the  cultivation  of  wheat  should  be 
abandoned  wherever  possible,  and  replaced  by  the  cultivation  of 
grass. 

The  question  of  our  home  stock,  however,  occupies  but  a 
fractional  part  of  Sir  William  Crookes's  address.  Ranging  from 
land  to  land,  he  surveys  the  wheat-producing  capacity  of  them  all, 
and  comes  to  the  distressing  conclusion  that  very  shortly  it  will 
be  impossible  for  the  world  to  produce  the  corn  which  it  requires. 
This  is  a  point  upon  which  I  cannot  pretend  to  argue,  especially 
with  an  eminent  authority  who  has  made  a  study  of  the  subject. 

But  when  it  comes  to  the  case  of  South  Africa  I  may  perhaps 
venture  an  opinion.  Sir  W.  Crookes  says,  '  At  the  present  time 
South  Africa  is  an  importer  of  wheat,  and  the  regions  suitable 
to  cereals  do  not  exceed  a  few  million  acres.'  It  is  true  that  South 
Africa  imports  wheat,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  population 
there  is  too  lazy  to  grow  corn.  I  should  say,  however,  that  the 
land  suitable  to  the  production  of  cereals  in  this  vast  territory — 
and  from  Northern  Rhodesia  to  the  Cape  it  is  vast  almost  beyond 
reckoning^might  be  measured  by  millions  and  millions  of  acres, 
upon  which,  if  necessary,  enough  grain  could  be  grown  to  feed  a 
continent. 

'  The  returns  for  1898  show  that  the  wheat  area  has  increased  to  2,102,220 
acres,  doubtless  owing  to  the  higher  price  which  this  cereal  commanded  during 
the  winter  of  1897  and  the  early  spring  of  1898. 


SEPTEMBER  335 

Sir  William  Crookes's  remedy  for  the  famine  which  he  foresees 
is  that  the  water-power  of  Niagara  should  be  used  to  produce 
nitrate  to  be  employed  in  manuring  the  earth  and  making  it 
more  fertile.  While  Niagara  and  the  Zambesi  Falls  are  getting 
into  harness  I  would  suggest  that  the  end  required,  namely,  the 
accumulation  of  nitrogen  in  the  soil,  can  be  much  promoted  by 
the  growth  of  leguminous  crops,  such  as  beans  and  vetches,  which 
have  the  property  of  collecting  nitrogen.  I  am  afraid,  however, 
that  this  plan  sounds  very  humble  and  homelike  after  that  of 
Niagara,  yet  it  has  merits,  and  with  the  help  of  a  little  farmyard 
muck  will  enable  the  farmer  to  produce  forty  or  even  fifty  bushels 
to  the  acre  upon  sound  and  well-tended  land.  For  the  rest,  as  it 
is  practically  certain  that  if  needful  we  can  supply  ourselves  for 
many  years  to  come  with  what  wheat  we  want,  I  think  that  we  may 
leave  other  nations  to  settle  the  question  of  their  own  shortage  as 
may  be  convenient  to  them. 

The  Times  also  announces  the  death  of  Lord  Winchilsea. 
Opinions  may  differ  as  to  his  schemes  and  ideas,  which  have  been 
attacked  by  some,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  him  the  agricul- 
tural interests,  and  especially  the  agricultural  labourers,  have  lost  a 
true  and  earnest  friend.  The  last  sentence  of  his  will,  '  God  save 
Agriculture,'  echoes  the  spirit  that  animated  his  life. 

September  12. — The  end  of  last  week,  like  its  beginning,  was 
intensely  hot.  In  this  room  on  Friday  night,  with  both  windows 
and  the  door  open,  the  thermometer  stood  at  75  degrees,  which 
is  high  for  England.  Truly  this  is  a  strange  climate,  as  a  com- 
parison between  July  9  and  September  9  will  prove.  The  unfor- 
tunate harvestmen  suffer  much  at  their  hard  and  incessant  toil. 
From  their  appearance  they  might  have  been  drenched  with 
water,  and  they  complain  that  they  cannot  eat  their  food.  The 
8th  is  said  to  have  been  the  hottest  September  day  of  which  a 
record  exists  in  England.  Perhaps  this  curious  heat-wave  has  to 
do  with  the  spot  which  has  appeared  upon  the  sun.  Looked  at 
through  a  piece  of  smoked  glass,  this  spot  appears  to  be  the  size 


336  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

of  a  bean,  but  I  am  informed  that  its  real  dimensions  are  about 
six  times  those  of  our  own  earth.  Things  in  the  sun  happen  on  a 
considerable  scale. 

On  Thursday  at  Bedingham  I  found  that,  except  for  about 
half  the  bean  field,  that  still  remains  to  get,  they  have  finished 
harvest.  When  this  is  up,  including  the  two  hayricks,  there 
will  stand  in  the  yard  nine  large  stacks  of  produce  gathered  off 
this  little  farm,  of  which  about  half  is  pasture.  I  found  also  that 
the  grass  is  withering  in  the  intense  heat,  which  has  stopped  the 
growth  of  the  roots,  and  especially  of  the  white  turnips.  But  we 
must  not  grumble  at  the  drought,  which  has  done  us  a  good  turn 
this  harvest. 

To-day  I  went  out  shooting,  but  1  cannot  say  that  the  sport 
was  good.  The  birds  are  scarce  and  wild  this  year,  and  we 
had  no  luck  with  what  we  saw  ;  indeed,  I  do  not  think  that 
personally  I  fired  more  than  half  a  dozen  shots  all  day.  We  often 
read  accounts  of  a  good  day's  shooting,  but  few  people  venture  to 
publish  the  record  of  a  bad  one.  In  truth,  there  are  not  many 
things  more  dreary  and  depressing  than  the  last  two  hours  of  an 
interminable  trudge,  in  the  burning  heat,  over  ground  like  iron, 
after  partridges  which  are  non-existing  or  will  not  be  found.  On 
such  occasions  all  the  errors  of  your  youth,  all  your  rotten  invest- 
ments, all  your  worries,  mistakes,  doubts,  and  disappointments,  all 
your  earnest  but  misdirected  efforts,  all  your  least  effective  plots, 
marshal  themselves  in  battalions  within  your  mind  as  you  drag 
yourself  through  fences  and  stumble  across  acres  of  roots  and 
cornfields.  Decidedly,  walking  up  partridges  when  they  are  scarce 
in  burning  weather  in  September  has  its  drawbacks,  but  luckily 
such  days  do  not  make  up  a  season's  sport. 

The  Ditchingham  land  being  lighter,  the  drought  here  has  got 
more  hold  than  at  Bedingham.  As  I  trudged  through  the  swedes 
to-day  I  noticed  that  they  are  beginning  to  turn  mildewed  and 
blue.  The  beet  also  are  at  a  standstill  and  the  grass  is  shrinking 
much.  We  have  been  obliged  to  bring  the  young  cattle  up  from 
the  marsh  and  turn  them  into  the  new  pasture,  No.  5,  off  which  we 


^ 


SEPTEMBER  337 

had  hoped  to  secure  a  second  cut  of  hay.  However,  the  splendid 
weather  has  been  a  great  help  this  harvest,  as  without  it  I  really 
do  not  know  how  we  should  have  dealt  with  our  heavy  corn  crop, 
much  of  which  must  have  spoiled  had  the  season  proved  wet. 
Farmers  cannot  get  everything  to  their  liking.  We  have  had 
a  good  haysel  and  a  good  harvest,  and  the  weather  that  suits  the 
corn  does  not  suit  the  roots  and  grass. 

Certainly  we  have  to  fight  against  a  tricky  and  a  variable 
market.  A  few  months  ago  wheat  was  as  high  as  fifty-three 
shillings  a  quarter;  to-day  its  average  price  is  twenty-six 
shillings  and  tenpence,  which  is  six  and  threepence  lower  than 
during  the  corresponding  week  last  year.  Barley  is  twenty-seven 
shillings  and  ninepence,  and  oats  only  seventeen  shillings  and  ten- 
pence  the  quarter.  It  would  seem  that  those  who  manage  the 
corn-market  are  not  as  much  impressed  as  they  ought  to  be  by 
the  jeremiad  of  Sir  William  Crookes. 

September  14. — We  expect  to  finish  harvest  to-morrow,  after 
having  been  engaged  on  it  for  five  weeks  short  of  one  day — a  very 
long  time  considering  that  from  first  to  last  the  work  has  only 
been  stopped  for  two  hours  by  rain.  I  hope  devoutly  that  the 
cast  of  corn  will  turn  out  to  be  proportionate  to  the  *  boolk '  we 
have  carried.  To  the  labourers  this  *  boolk '  is  a  positive  nuisance. 
Very  naturally  they  desire  to  win  the  harvest  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible, for  the  sooner  it  is  done  with  the  sooner  they  pocket  the 
sum  for  which  they  have  agreed,  and  are  in  a  position  to  recom- 
mence the  earning  of  their  weekly  wage.  To  them,  therefore,  a 
plentiful  harvest  is  in  fact  a  disadvantage.  For  this  state  of 
affairs  co-operation  seems  to  be  the  only  remedy.  It  is  in  the 
air,  we  hear  of  it  at  every  gathering,  and  read  much  about  it  in 
the  papers.  But  is  it  practicable  ?  I  do  not  remember  having 
seen  any  scheme  which  gives  much  prospect  of  its  successful 
working — that  is,  where  the  land  and  its  fruits  are  concerned. 

Certainly,  if  a  system  of  co-operation  had  been  in  force  during 
the  last  ten  years,  by  which  I  understand  a  system  that  would 

z 


338  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

pay  the  labourer  by  assigning  to  him  a  certain  share  in  the  profits 
of  the  business,  he  must  have  starved,  for  in  most  cases  there  have 
been  no  profits.  As  it  is,  whatever  may  have  happened  to  the 
landlord  and  the  farmer,  even  during  the  most  evil  days  week  by 
week  the  labourer  has  received  his  wage.  Of  the  three  chief 
interests  connected  with  the  soil,  his  interest  has  suffered  least. 
Should  good  times  ever  come  again,  he  might  be  inclined  to 
consider  co-operation,  but  I  believe  that  at  present  his  class  would 
scout  the  idea,  unless  indeed  it  was  discussed  upon  the  basis  of  a 
minimum  wage  not  to  fall  below  that  obtainable  at  present,  plus 
a  percentage  of  possible  profits.  But  would  such  an  arrangement 
be  acceptable  to  the  other  people  concerned  ?    I  doubt  it. 

In  walking  through  the  yard  I  noticed  that  on  my  farm  at 
any  rate — and  others  complain  of  the  same  thing — the  stacking 
is  now  very  inferior  to  what  it  used  to  be.  Nearly  every  stack 
leans  this  way  or  that,  and  is  propped  up  with  boughs  of  trees 
and  pieces  of  timber ;  also  they  are  roughly  and  untidily  built. 
The  old  skill,  upon  which  he  used  to  pride  himself,  seems  to  be 
deserting  the  agricultural  labourer.  This  is  a  fruit  of  the  bad 
times.  When  a  craft  becomes  unremunerative,  its  followers  cease 
to  take  the  same  interest  in  their  work,  and  all  details  that  are  not 
absolutely  necessary  begin  to  be  neglected.  Moreover,  skilful  and 
well-trained  labourers  are  growing  scarce.  Only  the  old  men 
really  understand  their  trade.  For  instance,  all  my  best  hands 
those  who  can  be  trusted  to  plough  or  thatch,  are  over  fifty  years 
of  age.  The  pick  of  the  young  men  are  no  longer  brought  up  to 
these  occupations  ;  they  crowd  to  the  towns  to  seek  a  living  there, 
sometimes  to  succeed,  sometimes  to  sink  to  misery  or  to  the 
earning  of  bread  by  hanging  about  the  dockyard  gates  upon  the 
chance  of  a  casual  job.  The  labourer  is  leaving  the  land 
principally,  if  not  entirely,  because  the  land  can  no  longer  pay 
him  what  he  considers  a  just  reward  for  his  toil.  To  me  it 
seems  a  sad  and  unnatural  thing  that  those  whom  the  soil  bore, 
and  whose  forefathers  worked  it  from  generation  to  generation, 
should  now  be  driven  to  find  a  home  in  the  teeming  and  unwhole- 


SEPTEMBER  339 

some  towns.  But  what  is  the  remedy  ?  I  suggest  that  perhaps  it 
may  be  found  in  the  re-creation  of  the  extinct  yeoman  class,  which 
incidentally,  at  any  rate  to  a  large  extent,  should  solve  the  labour 
problem.  If  they  have  a  stake  of  ownership  in  the  land,  men  will 
not  leave  it ;  they  care  nothing  for  it  at  present,  because  they  have 
no  interest  in  it  beyond  the  interest  of  the  hireling.  By  way  of  a 
beginning — but  this  is  only  a  suggestion  that  may  have  been  made 
before — why  does  not  the  Government  empower  any  suitable  autho- 
rity, such  as  the  County  Councils  or  the  Board  of  Agriculture,  to 
buy  up  the  glebe  lands  at  a  fair  valuation  and  resell  them  on  easy 
terms  to  suitable  applicants,  to  be  farmed  as  small  holdings  ?  At 
present,  in  most  instances,  these  glebes  are  only  a  nuisance  to  the 
clergy,  of  which  they  would  well  be  rid. 

Time  alone,  however,  can  furnish  the  final  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion, unless  Sir  William  Crookes  has  found  it  in  the  high  prices 
that  he  prophesies — a  point  upon  which  lam  more  than  doubtful.' 

September  17. — Last  Thursday,  the  15th,  harvest  being  ended, 
I  left  home  to  pay  a  visit  to  my  friend  Colonel  Lome  Stewart,  the 
Laird  of  Coll,  an  island  in  the  Hebrides.  They  farm  in  Coll ; 
also  the  island  is  in  many  ways  interesting,  especially  because 
of  Dr.  Johnson's  connection  with  it.  Therefore,  with  the  reader's 
leave,  I  propose  to  set  down  briefly  whatever  things  impressed  me 
on  my  travels.  It  is  curious  to  read  Boswell's  *  Journal  of  a  Tour 
to  the  Hebrides  '  in  1773,  and  consider  how  the  means  of  locomo- 
tion have  improved  in  the  short  space  of  a  hundred  and  twenty 
years.  What,  I  wonder,  would  the  Doctor  have  thought  of 
a  train  that  left  Euston  at  nine  o'clock  at  night  and  delivered  him 
at  Oban  at  eight-thirty  on  the  following  morning  ?  '  Sir,'  one  can 
imagine  him  saying  to  the  obsequious  Bozzy  as  he  assisted  him  to 
alight  from  the  'sleeper,'  'this  is  not  Travelling^'xX,  is  Transportation.^ 

But   then,  barely  four  generations   ago   not   only   were  the 

'  Those  of  my  readers  who  may  be  interested  in  this  vital  question  of  the 
exodus  of  the  rural  population  into  the  great  cities  are  referred  to  the  paper 
published  as  an  Appendix  to  this  book 


340  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

methods  of  conveyance  elementary,  but,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to 
discover,  it  never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  our  forefathers  that 
they  could  possibly  be  improved,  except,  of  course,  by  mending  the 
roads.  This  entire  lack  of  imaginative  foresight  makes  one 
wonder  whether  it  is  not  possible  that  within  another  four  genera- 
tions the  modes  of  voyaging  of  the  civilised  races  will  not  be 
almost  as  much  in  advance  of  our  own  as  ours  are  in  advance  of 
those  available  to  Dr.  Johnson.  We  know  that  before  then  many 
marvels  will  have  happened ;  that,  for  instance,  individuals  with 
half  the  world  between  them  will  be  able  to  talk  to  each  other 
across  space  by  means  of  syntonised  instruments  that,  of  the 
millions  pulsing  through  ether,  will  catch  and  record  only  those 
vibrations  which  are  emitted  by  their  own  twin ;  that  the 
word  spoken  in  Brighton  will  be  instantaneously  heard  by  the 
listener  in  Brisbane,  and  so  forth.  But  what  can  it  matter  to  us, 
who  so  long  ago  will  have  become  inhabitants  of  a  land  where  all 
things  earthly  are  forgotten  ? 

From  Oban  to  Coll  the  traveller  goes  by  steamboat,  a  journey 
of  six  or  seven  hours,  past  the  rugged  heights  of  Appin,  for  so  long 
the  home  of  the  Stewart  clan ;  past  the  rock  where  a  particularly 
truculent  Duart,  desiring  to  be  rid  of  his  wife,  hit  upon  the 
expedient,  admirable  in  its  simplicity,  of  taking  her  out  for  a  day's 
sea-fishing  and,  just  as  the  tide  began  to  rise,  finding  that  he  had 
business  on  shore.  Unfortunately  for  him  the  lady  had  good 
lungs  and  was  rescued,  but  the  rest  of  the  story  does  not  matter. 
Steaming  along  the  Sound  of  Mull  and  leaving  wooded  Tobermory 
on  the  left,  the  vessel  comes  into  Loch  Sunart,  over  which  tower 
the  rude  heights  of  Ardnamurchan,  now,  I  am  told,  no  longer  owned 
by  Highland  chieftains.  Indeed,  the  hereditary  '  laird  '  is  rapidly 
becoming  little  more  than  a  tradition  in  the  sporting  and  more 
picturesque  portions  of  the  Highlands,  where  his  place  is  filled  by 
the  successful  southerner  clothed  in  a  very  new  kilt. 

After  Ardnamurchan  Point  is  left  behind  come  ten  or  twelve 
miles  of  open  water,  which,  when  the  swell  is  pressing  in  from  the 
Atlantic,  have  been  known  to  interfere  with  the  digestions  of  the 


SEPTEMBER  341 

hardiest.  All  this  while  lying  before  us  can  be  seen  the  long  low 
shore  of  Coll,  a  narrow  island  about  thirteen  miles  long,  very 
stony  and  desolate-looking,  and  at  length,  running  round  a  point 
about  which  hang  gannet  and  other  diving  birds  watching  for 
their  prey  from  on  high,  we  enter  what  is  by  courtesy  called  a 
harbour.  I  say  *  by  courtesy,'  for  if  the  wind  is  blowing  hard, 
especially  from  the  sou'-east,  it  is  impossible  for  the  steamer  to 
communicate  with  the  shore  ;  and  even  at  the  best  of  times  she 
does  not  seem  to  care  to  undertake  the  adventure  of  mooring  by 
the  little  stone  pier,  preferring  to  anchor  a  hundred  yards  or  more 
away.  Presently  a  broad-bottomed  boat  comes  out,  into  which 
we  are  bundled  with  our  luggage,  some  other  passengers  return- 
ing from  the  gathering  at  Oban,  several  black-faced  rams,  and  a 
sheepdog.  Unfortunately  for  himself,  the  dog  was  placed  too 
near  one  of  these  rams,  which,  there  on  the  bosom  of  the  deep, 
proceeded  to  avenge  the  wrongs  of  its  race  upon  his  person 
until  he  retreated  discomfited  to  another  part  of  the  boat. 

Half  an  hour  later  we  were  driving  towards  the  Castle,  that 
is  situated  five  miles  away  at  a  place  called  Breachacha,  which, 
being  interpreted,  means  Spotted  Meadow.  The  Spots,  it  may  be 
explained,  are  the  lovely  flowers  wherewith  it  is  adorned  in  spring, 
and  especially  a  certain  variety  of  wild  geranium.  Except  that  a 
good  road  now  runs  across  it,  with  telegraph  poles  at  the  side, 
the  landscape  cannot  have  changed  much  since  it  was  scanried 
by  Boswell.  There  are  the  same  low  rough  moorlands  and  the  same 
dark  lochs,  while  to  the  left  heaves  the  same  eternal  sea.  Pre-. 
sently  we  pass  a  farmstead  built  of  substantial  stone  and  with  its 
back  turned  to  the  ocean  for  protection  from  the  roaring  winds,  but 
this  house  was  not  there  in  his  day.  Then  we  come  to  a  sawmill 
driven  by  a  water-wheel,  and  lying  about  it  baulks  of  timber  washed 
out  of  wrecks  that  have  been  ground  to  pieces  on  this  stormy 
coast.  Another  mile  and  the  Castle  is  in  view — a  three  storied  and 
naked-looking  building  coated  with  grey  cement  and  backed  by 
the  massive  ruin  of  the  old  home  of  the  McLeans,  who  owned  this 
island  for  many  generations.     Round  about  the  Castle  are  lands 


342  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

more  or  less  enclosed  and  improved,  upon  which  wander  some  of 
the  Laird's  herd  of  beautiful  Ayrshire  cows — and  a  noble  herd  it 
is  numbering  250  or  more.  Here  also  oats  stand  in  stooks,  and 
beyond  them  appears  a  field  of  magnificent  swedes.  Nowhere 
have  I  seen  the  swede  thrive  as  it  does  in  the  damp,  moist  climate 
of  Coll :  the  bulbs  are  splendid,  and  the  leaves  so  tall  and  thick 
that  it  is  a  labour  to  walk  through  them.  Another  striking  feature 
of  the  place  is  the  great  flocks  of  starlings  that  Boswell  noted, 
which  still  frequent  the  island. 

And  so  at  last  we  come  to  the  hospitable  house  that  pleased 
Dr.  Johnson  so  much  when  first  he  found  shelter  in  it,  although 
afterwards,  when  he  grew  bored,  he  described  it  '  as  a  mere  trades- 
man's box  with  nothing  becoming  a  chief  about  it.'  The  Doctor's 
and  Boswell's  bedchambers  are,  I  believe,  practically  unaltered 
since  their  day,  and  in  the  former  hangs  the  sage's  portrait.  Once 
I  slept  in  it,  but  on  this  occasion  Bozzy's  chamber  fell  to  my  lot. 
It  is  recorded  in  the  book  that  these  twain  disputed  fiercely  about 
those  rooms,  arguing  as  to  which  of  them  boasted  the  best  curtains. 
Johnson's  were  proved  to  be  the  superior,  being  woven  of  linen 
thread,  and  giving  up  the  curtains  Boswell  pointed  out  that  his  bed- 
posts were  the  finest.  Thereon  the  Doctor  retaliated,  '  Well,  if  you 
have  the  \i&^\.  posts ^  we  will  have  you  tied  to  them  and  whipped.' 

This  does  not  seem  a  good  specimen  of  the  Johnsonian  wit, 
or  at  least  I  cannot  see  its  point  Boswell  quotes  it  as  illustrative 
of  his  hero's  power  of  placing  his  adversary  '  in  a  ludicrous  view.' 
To  my  mind  it  is  not  the  victim  of  the  joke  who  is  ludicrous. 

After  dinner  we  conversed  about  farming  in  Coll.  There  is  no 
doubt  as  to  the  considerable  capacities  of  the  island,  which  is  well 
suited  to  cattle  and  sheep,  produces  good  hay  where  the  land  is 
improved,  very  fair  crops  of  oats,  and,  as  I  have  said,  magnificent 
swedes  and  white  turnips.  Thirty,  or  even  twenty  years  ago,  when 
it  was  more  highly  farmed  than  it  is  now,  it  used  to  be  a  prosperous 
place.  To-day,  however,  the  blight  of  agricultural  depression  lies 
as  heavy  upon  it  as  it  does  upon  the  Eastern  Counties.  Thus  the 
gheeses  that  it  produces  can  barely  hold  their  own  in  the  Scotch 


SEPTEMBER  343 

market  against  the  imported  Dutch  and  American  article,  and  as 
it  does  not  pay  to  ship  young  cattle  to  the  mainland,  the  throats 
of  most  of  the  pedigree  calves  are  cut  so  soon  as  they  are  born. 
When  I  told  Hood  this,  by  the  way,  he  said  little  and  turned  the 
subject,  intimating  thereby,  I  think,  that  it  was  of  no  use  wasting 
good  travellers'  tales  upon  a  person  of  his  experience.  Yet  the 
thing  is  true.  Another  obstacle  to  the  success  of  farming  in  Coll 
is  the  deficiency  of  labour,  which,  if  such  a  thing  be  possible,  seems 
to  be  even  scarcer  than  it  is  becoming  here  at  home. 

To-day  we  went  out  shooting.  Here  I  will  stop  to  explain 
that  to  a  certain  kind  of  sportsman,  at  any  rate.  Coll  is  a  perfect 
paradise,  and,  although  I  am  but  a  moderate  shot,  I  trust  that  I 
may  be  numbered  as  one  of  that  honourable  army.  Perhaps, 
however,  there  is  no  name  so  vilely  misapplied  as  this  of  '  sports- 
man.' The  bruiser,  the  racing  tout,  the  trap-shooter,  and  others 
equally  ignoble,  are  all  '  sportsmen.'  Sportsmen,  also,  are  those 
who  take  great  'shoots'  with  the  object  of  killing  the  hugest 
amount  of  game  possible  and  seeing  the  reports  of  their  prowess  in 
the  papers.  Woe  be  to  the  man  whose  poor  performance  diminishes 
such  a  total !  Never  shall  I  forget  the  story  of  a  gentleman  whom 
once  I  knew,  who,  under  some  misapprehension  as  to  the  extent 
of  his  skill  with  a  gun,  was  asked  to  one  of  these  colossal  and 
advertising '  shoots.'  His  very  first  stand  happened  to  be  at  a  spot 
where,  for  about  twenty  minutes,  pheasants  and  hares  passed  him 
in  an  incessant  stream.  Furiously  did  he  aim  and  bang,  till,  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  beat,  he  found  himself  surrounded  by  a  piled 
up  ring  of  cartridge  cases,  while  almost  at  his  feet  lay  an  un- 
fortunate hen-pheasant,  the  only  thing  that  he  had  succeeded  in 
hitting,  blown  absolutely  to  pieces.  He  paused  and  mopped  his 
brow,  and  looking  round  him  in  the  vain  hope  of  discovering  some 
other  trophies  of  his  fiery  labours,  for  the  first  time  perceived  a 
litde  boy  with  a  knife  and  an  ash  stick  in  his  hand,  sheltering 
himself  behind  the  bole  of  an  oak. 

'  You  beastly  little  boy,'  he  said,  for  his  temper  was  somewhat 
ruffled,  '  what  are  you  doing  there  ? ' 


344  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

'  Doing  ?  '  answered  that  youth  with  a  sour  smile  ;  *  I'm  set  to 
watch  yer  shoot,  and  /';«  a  notching  of  yer  misses  I ' 

The  sportsman  who  would  be  happy  in  Coll  belongs  to  none  of 
these  classes.  He  must  be  a  person  who  does  not  mind  hard  work 
and  who  is  a  lover  of  Nature  and  its  voices.  To  such  a  one  there 
are  few  places  like  this  island,  for  here  wild  things  abound,  and 
though  the  bags  may  not  be  heavy,  they  will  certainly  be  varied. 
In  the  bogs  are  snipe,  among  the  bents  lie  partridge,  and  yonder 
on  the  moorland  grouse  may  be  found  ;  both  the  partridge  and  the 
grouse  having  been  introduced  since  Boswell's  day,  who,  when  he 
went  out  shooting  in  Coll,  was  content  with  starlings,  which  he 
ate.  Then  there  are  hares  in  great  numbers,  wild  duck  if  you  can 
get  near  them,  golden  and  green  plover,  the  last  so  plentiful  that 
they  are  not  shot,  and  in  the  winter  woodcocks  and  wild  geese. 

Ravens  may  be  seen  also,  and  not  far  from  them  a  pair  of  pere- 
grines hanging  about  the  face  of  the  Green  Mountain,  although, 
because  of  their  destructiveness,  neither  of  these  birds  are  allowed 
to  increase.  Out  of  the  caves,  too,  flash  rock-pigeons  with  a  noise 
of  rattling  wings,  and  from  time  to  time  a  curlew,  surprised  in  a 
hollow  of  the  sandpits,  twists  away  like  a  great  snipe,  filling  the 
air  with  his  ringing,  melancholy  notes ;  while  yonder  on  the  sea- 
shore the  gulls  wheel  and  clamour.  Indeed,  if  you  will  sit  quiet  and 
watch  at  certain  places,  there  in  the  calm  water  under  the  shelter 
of  a  rock  you  may  see  a  round  head  appear,  a  head  adorned  with 
whiskers  and  large  soft  eyes,  followed  presently  by  another.  These 
are  seals,  pretty,  harmless  creatures,  which  in  my  opinion  ought  to  be 
less  shot  at  than  they  are,  especially  as  for  every  one  that  is  brought 
to  bag  about  three  sink  down  to  die.  They  are  comparatively  rare 
here ;  indeed,  if  the  reader  wishes  to  find  seals  he  should  visit 
the  coasts  of  Iceland,  where  I  have  counted  dozens  of  them,  huge 
fellows,  and  apparently  of  different  varieties,  lying  upon  islands  or 
disporting  themselves  within  a  few  yards  of  our  boat.  I  never 
shot  at  one,  however,  and  of  this  I  am  very  glad. 

Shooting  here  is  quite  a  different  thing  to  shooting  in  Norfolk. 
To  begin  with,  not  more  than  two  guns  go  out  together.     At  a 


SEPTEMBER  345 

quarter  to  ten  o'clock  or  thereabouts  a  tall  bearded  figure  with  a 
genial  and  weather-beaten  face  may  be  seen  striding  across  the 
golf-green  towards  the  Castle,  accompanied  by  a  pointer  dog  or 
dogs.  This  is  the  keeper,  Lees,  of  whom  I  will  say — and  it  is  my 
sole  complaint — that  his  walking  powers  are  simply  demoniacal. 
Not  that  he  seems  to  go  fast,  but  his  length  of  stride  is  tremen- 
dous, and — he  never  stops.  From  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  till 
seven  at  night,  with  the  shortest  possible  interval  for  refreshment, 
that  stride  will  continue  through  snipe-bogs,  over  sand-bents, 
across  heather  and  peat-hags,  with  the  fearful  regularity  of  a 
machine,  till  even  the  inexhaustible  pointer  dog  begins  to  look 
tired  and  to  droop  its  tail.  But  Lees  is  not  tired ;  on  the  contrary, 
having  deposited  a  heavy  load  of  game  and  cartridge  bags  at  the 
Castle,  he  just  strolls  back  to  his  house  a  league  or  so  away,  has 
his  tea,  and  starts  out  for  a  spot  several  miles  in  another  direction, 
where  he  watches  for  flighting  duck  by  moonlight.  Nothing 
makes  any  difference  to  him ;  a  few  hares  or  an  extra  hundred 
of  cartridges  he  does  not  seem  to  feel.  One  morning,  after  a 
tremendous  trudge  upon  the  previous  day,  I  asked  him  if  he 
was  not  tired.  '  Naa,'  he  answered  wonderingly.  '  Then  I  wish 
to  Heaven  you  were,'  I  said,  much  to  his  amusement  j  but  the 
fact  is  that  he  never  was,  never  is,  and  never  will  be  tired; 
perhaps  because  he  is  a  teetotaler.  Total  abstainers,  please  note. 
On  his  arrival  at  the  Castle  he  finds  us  waiting,  for  one  of  the 
many  merits  of  my  companion  is  a  remorseless  and  provident 
punctuality  which  has  become  a  proverb  in  the  land,  and  off  we 
go.  The  arrangement  is  that  we  should  begin  with  the  snipe, 
so  we  head  for  the  hig /heel  about  two  miles  away,  accompanied 
by  Lees  and  a  satellite  named  Hector.  A  quarter  of  an  hour's 
walking  brings  us  to  a  stretch  of  rough  low  meadows,  which 
were,  I  believe,  reclaimed  from  the  bog  some  years  ago,  but  are 
now  once  more  becoming  marshy.  Just  as  we  have  climbed  over 
the  stone  wall  of  the  first  there  comes  a  ch — eep^  a  flick  of  a 
beautiful  brown  wing,  a  glimpse  of  a  white  stomach  and  green 
legs,  and  a  snipe — the  first  that  I   have  seen  for  a  year — is  zig- 


346  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

zagging  up  wind  to  my  right.  I  manage  to  kill  him,  and  at  the 
sound  of  the  shot  others  rise,  which  I  do  not  kill,  as  I  flatter 
myself,  because  I  have  made  a  mistake  with  the  cartridges  and 
am  banging  at  them  with  No.  5.  Then  presently  the  air 
grows  full  of  snipe,  which  appear  in  wisps  in  every  direction,  but 
their  very  number  is  confusing;  also  they  are  wild,  being — so 
says  Lees — just  arrived  from  across  the  ocean  and  not  yet  settled 
in  their  winter  quarters.  It  is  charming  shooting,  but  in  a  high 
wind,  such  as  blew  to-day,  these  snipe  are  terribly  difficult  and 
great  absorbers  of  cartridges.  This,  however,  makes  it  all  the 
more  satisfactory  when  you  bag  one  of  them. 

With  many  men  there  comes  an  age  when,  although  they  still 
do  the  deed  from  force  of  habit  or  of  circumstances,  they  begin  to 
feel  a  very  active  dislike  to  depriving  anything  of  life.  At  times 
I  suffer  sadly  from  this  complaint,  especially  where  hares  are  con- 
cerned ;  but  my  qualms  seem  a  little  difficult  to  explain,  as  I  have 
small  objection  to  shooting  snipe,  woodcock,  duck,  or  any  other 
creature  that  is  downright  and  bojtd  fide  wild.  Such  things  breed 
by  the  hundred  thousand  in  vast  swamps  across  the  sea,  and,  after 
all,  it  does  not  seem  unjust  that  those  who  protect  them  here  should 
take  a  tiny  tithe  of  their  number  for  sport  and  food.  Of  course, 
however,  that  is  the  man's  and  not  the  creature's  point  of  view. 
But  the  whole  system  of  our  inexplicable  world  is  built  up  on  this 
great  corner-stone  of  death  dealt  out  remorselessly  by  everything 
that  lives  to  every  other  thing,  and  neither  man  nor  beast  can 
change  its  rule. 

Having  secured  several  couple  of  snipe  in  the  meadows,  we 
entered  the /heel  or  bog,  that  on  its  surface  is  a  beautiful  bright 
green  with  a  substratum  of  oozy  red  mud  such  as  snipe  love, 
through  which,  however,  it  is  both  difficult  and  disagreeable  to 
walk.  Here,  oddly  enough,  the  birds  were  not  so  plentiful  as  in 
the  meadows,  though  I  am  told  that  later  in  the  season  they  are 
found  in  great  numbers.  When  they  are  flushed  from  the 
swamp,  after  wheeling  round  and  round  high  in  the  air,  they 
settle  about  on  little  marshy  patches  among  the  hills,   whither 


SEPTEMBER  347 

in  due  course  we  follow  them.  This  is  perhaps  the  prettiest 
shooting  of  all,  for  in  these  spots  the  snipe  rise  suddenly  and 
unexpectedly.  Nobody  seems  quite  to  understand  their  habits, 
or  why  they  choose  one  place  and  not  another  to  hide  in  ;  thus, 
m  Coll  I  have  noticed  on  several  occasions  that  on  one  side  of  a 
ridge  they  will  be  plentiful,  whereas  on  the  other,  on  what  seems  the 
most  suitable  and  tempting  ground,  it  is  impossible  to  find  a  single 
bird. 

Following  the  snipe  '  lays,'  by  degrees  we  work  round  to  the 
sand-bents  near  the  seashore,  where  partridges  make  their  home, 
strong  and  beautiful  birds  with  a  delicious  flavour,  but,  as  I  think, 
a  little  browner  in  colour  than  our  variety.  They  feed,  I  believe, 
on  the  young  shoots  of  the  bent.  By  the  way,  these  tough  sea 
grasses,  of  which  the  botanical  name  is  Elymus  Arenarius^  play  an 
important  part  in  the  natural  economy  of  Coll,  since  except  for 
them,  much  of  the  island  would  be  swallowed  up  in  blowing  sand. 
As  it  is,  the  aspect  of  the  area  of  bent  ground  is  strange  and  even 
fantastic.  From  year  to  year  and  from  generation  to  generation 
the  roaring  winds  of  winter  tear  and  delve  among  these  sand- 
hills, here  scooping  out  a  huge  pit  fifty  feet  deep  or  more,  there 
bevelling  a  ridge  almost  to  the  angle  of  a  precipice.  But  ever 
during  the  more  peaceful  months  the  sand  grasses  are  at  work  to 
repair  the  damage,  matting  and  binding  the  shiftmg  soil  with 
their  succulent  white  roots.  It  is  another  instance  of  the  ex- 
traordinary providence  of  Nature,  or  the  extraordinary  nature  of 
Providence  ! 

At  length  we  come  to  a  little  spring  of  water — water  is  not 
very  plentiful  in  Coll,  rain  excepted,  of  course — and  halt  to  lunch. 
The  meal  is  frugal,  for  it  must  be  carried — the  heavy  feed  of  an 
English  shooting  luncheon  being  represented  by  a  few  sandwiches 
and  a  bit  of  bread  and  cheese,  flavoured  with  water-cress  from  the 
spring,  and  washed  down  with  a  little  whisky.  But  how  delight- 
ful it  is  to  sit  in  that  wild  and  lonely  place,  Ustening  to  the  con- 
tinual swish  of  the  wind  among  the  rocks  and  grasses,  breathing 
j^n  air  like  wine,  and  watching  the  billows  as  they  roll  in  from  the 


348  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Atlantic,  while  the  gale  catches  their  crests  as  they  come,  and 
drives  them  back  in  puffs  of  snowy  spray. 

Then  the  sport  begins  again,  and  is  followed  with  varying 
success  till  evening  is  at  hand.  Here  and  there  the  pointer 
stands  to  partridges  and  we  get  a  shot  or  two,  but  to-day  our  aim 
is  snipe,  so  we  do  not  follow  up  the  coveys.  Thus  we  work  home- 
wards across  the  lower  land,  till  about  six  o'clock,  thoroughly  tired, 
we  find  ourselves  back  in  the  Castle,  and  murmur,  almost  in  the 
words  of  Dr.  Johnson,  but,  I  hope,  a  little  more  politely  :  *  Now, 
Coll,  if  you  could  get  us  a  dish  of  tea ' 

Such  is  a  day's  shooting  in  the  Hebrides  ;  bag,  twelve  couple 
of  snipe  and  three  brace  of  partridge.  It  ought  to  have  been 
more,  but  on  this  we  will  not  dwell. 

September  i8. — To-day  is  Sunday,  and  we  rest  from  our  labours. 
After  breakfast  I  went  to  examine  the  old  Castle  where  the 
McLeans  lived  for  many  generations,  although  I  believe  that  it  dates 
from  long  before  their  time.  This  ruin,  massively  constructed  of 
great  boulders  gathered  on  the  seashore,  stands  at  a  distance  of 
about  two  hundred  yards  from  the  present  house,  which  was  built 
a  few  years  prior  to  Dr.  Johnson's  visit.  In  his  day  the  roof  was 
still  on  the  Castle,  and  the  floors  of  the  various  stories  remained ; 
but  now  roof  and  floors  have  vanished,  and  the  place  is  tenanted 
only  by  numberless  rock-pigeons.  It  consists  of  a  square  tower 
or  keep,  which  was  divided  into  four  stories,  and  an  attic  covered 
in  with  a  sharp-pitched  roof,  for  its  angle  can  be  traced  upon  the 
stonework.  Joined  on  to  it  is  the  dwelling-house,  which  was  also 
of  several  stories,  with  wide  fireplaces  for  the  burning  of  peat  and 
driftwood.  All  the  arrangements  of  this  abode,  including  those 
of  a  sanitary  nature,  seem  to  have  been  rude  in  the  extreme,  yet 
they  proved  sufficient  for  the  needs  of  generations  of  chieftains 
and  their  families,  till  a  certain  McLean,  the  red  McLean,  built 
the  present  house,  about  1730,  and  \efX  the  old  sea-robbers' fortress 
to  fall  into  ruin. 

After  leaving  the  Castle  we  walked  to  visit  the  tomb  of  the 


SEPTEMBER  349 

McLeans.  A  more  impressive  or  desolate  resting-place  for  the 
bones  of  a  departed  family  can  scarcely  be  imagined,  overlooking 
as  it  does  the  waters  of  Crossapol  Bay,  across  which  the  winds 
moan  without  ceasing.  No  church  or  building  is  near  it,  the 
tomb,  a  stone  enclosure  of  about  twenty  feet  square,  in  the  midst 
of  which  stands  a  sarcophagus,  being  the  only  trace  of  man's 
handiwork  upon  all  the  sweep  of  plain  and  bents.  When  I  was 
here  before  the  iron  gate  had  rotted  from  its  hinges  and  the 
cattle  herded  within  the  walls ;  but  on  learning  of  this  Colonel 
Lome  Stewart,  the  present  Laird  of  Coll,  caused  it  to  be  replaced, 
with  the  result  that,  at  the  risk  of  impalement,  my  companion  had 
great  difficulty  in  clambering  into  the  place — a  feat  which  I  did  not 
attempt.  On  the  wall  of  the  tomb  facing  the  gateway  is  a  marble 
slab,  which  is  so  rapidly  decaying  and  becoming  illegible  that  I 
transcribe  its  inscription  here.     It  runs  : 

THE   LATTER   CEMETERY   OF   THE   FAMILY   BEING   NEARLY  OVER 

WHELMED  BY   SAND   BLOWING,    THIS   WAS   ERECTED,    AND 

THE    REMAINS    OF    HIS     FAMILY    AND    ANCESTORS    REMOVED 

TO   IT   BY   ALEXANDER    MCLEAN   OF    COLL,    UPON    THE 

OCCASION   OF  THE    LAMENTED    DEATH    OF    HIS    BELOVED 

COMPANION,    CATHARINA   CAMERON,    THE  BEAUTY   OF   WHOSE 

PERSON   WAS   ONLY    SURPASSED    BY    THE    VIRTUES   AND 

AMIABLE   DISPOSITION    OF    HER    MIND. 

OBT.  CLIFTON    lO    FEB.    l8o2,    AE.    46. 

This  is  the  first  time  that  ever  I  remember  seeing  the  personal 
appearance  of  the  deceased  alluded  to  upon  a  monument.  I 
wonder  how  in  those  days,  when  there  were  neither  railways  nor 
steamboats,  her  husband  contrived  to  convey  the  body  of  the 
beautiful  Catharina  Cameron  from  Clifton  to  Coll.  I  am  told, 
however — for  a  piece  of  gossip  of  the  sort  lasts  for  a  long  time 
here — that  while  the  tomb  was  building,  and  the  bones  of  the  old 
McLeans  were  being  moved  into  it,  her  body  lay  for  a  year  in  a 
packing-case  in  some  shed  at  the  harbour  without  any  one  suspect- 
ing what  the  fatal  box  contained. 


350  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

Leaving  the  tomb  of  the  McLeans — all  that  remains  to  them  of 
the  island  which  they  ruled  for  generations — we  walked  back  to 
the  Castle  by  the  seashore,  observing  the  ways  of  the  seabirds  as  we 
went,  and  especially  those  of  an  old  heron,  who  stood  upon  a  rock 
looking  out  for  little  fishes  until  the  tide  rose  to  the  height  of  his 
stomach  and  forced  him  to  move  on.  By  the  way,  on  the  top  of 
the  grass  knolls  in  this  part  of  the  island  are  most  curious  little 
knobs  of  turf,  almost  bottle-  or  rather  breast-shaped,  and  ending 
in  a  point.  The  suggestion  is  that  these  knobs  are  formed  by 
the  droppings  of  birds ;  but  when  I  cut  one  off  with  my  spud  and 
examined  it,  I  found  that  the  peat  of  which  it  was  composed  is 
of  the  same  character  as  that  of  the  mound  beneath.  This  seems 
to  negative  the  bird-dropping  idea,  but  what  else  can  have  caused 
the  lumps  is  to  me  a  mystery. 

In  the  afternoon  we  accompanied  our  host  to  the  Green 
Mountain  to  examine  a  mound  which  may  have  been  a  tumulus. 
Certainly  it  is  placed  in  just  such  a  spot  as  a  sea-rover  with  taste 
would  have  chosen  for  his  grave — elevated,  airy,  and  commanding 
a  magnificent  view  of  the  ocean,  that  beats  incessantly  on  the 
gneiss  rocks  below,  flying  about  and  above  them  in  clouds  of 
gUstening  foam.  Indeed,  so  choice  a  situation  would  commend 
itself  to  many  even  in  these  latter  days ;  at  least,  did  I  dwell  in 
Coll,  it  would  commend  itself  to  me. 

September  20. — Yesterday  we  were  shooting  at  Arinagaur  and 
Gallanach.  The  day  was  beautiful,  but  rain  with  a  high  wind 
came  on  as  we  turned  homewards.  It  was  strange,  in  the 
gathering  gloom,  to  see  the  plover  borne  past  us  on  the  gale,  utter- 
ing their  plaintive  cries,  and,  now  white,  now  black,  as  the  breeze 
tossed  them,  looking  for  all  the  world  like  great  wind-swept 
aspen  leaves.  I  do  not  know  the  reason,  but  beneath  that  drear  and 
sodden  sky  they  seemed  to  add  a  wild  touch  to  the  landscape  and 
to  accentuate  its  loneliness. 

As  we  passed  Arinagaur  I  admired  the  dressed  granite  of  which 
a  chapel  there  is  built,  but  Lees  told  me  that  this  granite  is  very 


SEPTEMBER  351 

pervious  to  damp,  which,  unless  they  are  cemented  on  the  outside, 
will  work  through  walls  of  it  eighteen  inches  or  more  in  thickness. 
In  the  cultivated  lands  I  came  across  a  new  peat  drain.  These 
drains  are  cut  several  feet  deep,  and  about  a  foot  from  the  bottom 
upon  either  side  of  them  a  ledge  is  left  in  the  turf.  On  this  ledge, 
which  supports  them,  are  laid  other  turves,  and  thus  a  square 
channel  is  formed  beneath,  down  which  the  water  percolates.  If 
made  properly  these  drains  will  last  for  many  years. 

To-day  was  extraordinarily  wet  and  windy,  but  in  the  afternoon 
it  held  up,  and  wc  managed  to  escape  for  a  walk  with  our  guns, 
but  succeeded  only  in  shooting  a  curlew  and  a  rock-pigeon  or  two, 
which  fell  into  crevices  full  of  rushing  yeasty  water  where  we  could 
not  even  look  for  them.  To-day,  also,  I  received  a  telegram  an- 
nouncing that  we  had  taken  a  good  many  prizes,  seven  or  eight  in 
all,  at  the  Mutford  and  Lothingland  District  Agricultural  Show, 
which  this  year  is  being  held  at  Bungay.  First  and  second  for  cows, 
first  for  fat  beasts,  a  first  and  a  highly  commended  for  butter,  and 
so  forth.  It  is  very  satisfactory,  and  I  wired  back  to  congratulate 
Hood.  Here  the  telegraph,  or  rather  the  telephone,  runs  straight 
into  the  dining-room  of  the  Castle.  Nothing  ever  brought  the  mar- 
vellous nature  of  this  invention  more  home  to  me  than  the  despatch 
ing  of  a  message  to  Ditchingham,  five  hundred  miles  away,  and  an 
hour  or  so  later  to  be  startled  by  a  ting^  ting  on  the  bell  and  rise  to 
listen  to  the  answer.  I  think  that  the  telephone,  there  by  the  lonely 
waters  of  Breachacha  Bay,  would  have  amazed  Dr.  Johnson  even 
more  than  the  *  sleeper.'  How  interesting  it  would  be  if  by  any 
miracle  we  could  hear  his  reflections  on  the  subject. 

September  25,  Sunday. — We  have  been  shooting  every  day 
this  week  since  the  20th.  On  Wednesday  the  21st  we  killed  about 
ten  brace  of  partridges  on  the  bents,  lunching  near  to  the  farm- 
house at  Crossapol.  Quite  close  by  this  house  is  a  graveyard, 
which,  after  the  curious  fashion  of  Scotch  burial-places,  runs  down 
to  the  rocks  upon  the  sea-border.  About  this  cemetery  my  host 
had  a  tale  to  tell,  which  will  be  interesting^  to  the  lover  of  collie 


352  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

dogs.  Once,  some  years  ago,  he  was  living  in  the  farmhouse  at 
Crossapol  while  some  repairs  were  going  on  at  the  Castle,  and  was 
greatly  pleased  by  the  daily  visits  of  a  most  delightful  collie  that, 
from  pure  and  flattering  attention,  came  all  the  way  across  the 
island  to  see  him  at  the  farm.  One  fine  morning,  however,  some- 
body chanced  to  walk  into  the  neighbouring  graveyard,  where 
there  had  been  a  recent  interment.  The  rest  of  the  story  may  be 
guessed,  but  that  clever  doggie  was  knowing  enough  to  fill  in  his 
excavations,  and  reopen  them  when  necessary.  The  soil  is  sandy, 
and  they  do  not  bury  deep  at  Crossapol. 

Our  best  day's  shooting  this  week  was  on  the  22  nd,  at  Cliad 
and  Grissapol  (not  Crossapol),  when  we  killed  thirteen  couple  of 
snipe,  one  partridge,  and  two  and  a  half  brace  of  grouse.  The 
last,  however,  were  wild  and  hard  to  come  by.  Lees  tells  me  that 
they  are  increasing  on  the  island,  which  is  very  good  news.  I 
think  that  on  that  day  I  must  have  seen  two  hundred  snipe  in  a 
single  boggy  turnip  field,  but  for  the  most  part  they  rose  in  wisps 
and  out  of  shot.  I  remember  that  I  had  five  down  at  once,  which 
is  not  a  common  occurrence  nowadays. 

To-day  we  walked  to  service  at  the  Presbyterian  church  at 
Clabac.  People  who  grumble  because  they  have  to  go  half  a 
mile  to  find  a  church  door  would  scarcely  praise  the  spiritual 
facilities  of  Coll,  for  from  the  Castle  to  Clabac  is  a  good  five  miles, 
or  an  hour  and  a  half  of  steady  walking.  The  kirk,  which  belongs 
to  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland,  is  joined  on  to  the  manse, 
and  is  a  very  plain  building,  whitewashed  and  shed-like  in  appear- 
ance. At  the  end  of  it,  clad  in  a  black  silk  grown,  sat  the  minister, 
the  Rev.  D.  Macechern,  in  a  high  pulpit,  and  beneath  him  were 
gathered  a  congregation  of  about  twenty  people.  The  service  con- 
sisted of  hymns,  extempore  prayers,  two  lessons,  and  a  long,  but  on 
the  whole  a  very  good  and  well-reasoned  sermon.  The  Psalms  were 
sung  from  a  metrical  paraphrase,  but  why,  instead  of  hacking  them 
into  rhyming  couplets,  the  Bible  or  our  beautiful  Prayer-Book 
version  of  these  unequalled  poems  is  not  considered  worthy  to 
be  used  in  Scotland  to  me  has  always  been  a  mystery.     Another 


SEPTEMBER  353 

curious  thing  is  the  strange  superiority  of  the  ordinary  Scotch 
over  the  ordinary  English  preacher.  At  one  time  or  another  I  have 
attended  various  Scotch  churches,  and  never  yet  did  I  hear  a  bad 
sermon  ;  indeed,  some  of  those  addresses  struck  me  as  masterly. 
I  doubt  whether  the  haphazard  visitor  to  EngHsh  village  churches 
would  be  able  to  say  as  much.  It  is  obvious,  too,  that  the  general 
intelligence  of  the  average  country  churchgoers  in  Scotland  must 
be  much  higher  than  that  of  the  corresponding  class  in  England, 
I  am  convinced  that  few  members  of  an  agricultural  congregation 
in  the  Eastern  Counties  would  follow  the  closely  reasoned  and 
often  recondite  arguments  of  the  preacher  with  as  much  zest  and 
understanding  as  do  his  hearers  in  the  most  out-of-the- world  parts 
of  Scotland. 

Boswell  talks  of  a  lead  mine  in  Coll,  that  must  have  been  some- 
where in  this  direction,  which  he  actually  visited  with  Dr.  Johnson, 
although  now  all  knowledge  of  it  seems  to  have  been  lost.  After 
church  I  asked  the  minister  if  he  knew  anything  of  such  a 
mine.  He  said,  No,  but  that  he  had  some  curious  stones  in 
his  garden.  I  went  to  look  at  them,  and  among  them  found  a 
lump  of  what  appeared  to  be  lead  ore.  It  had  been  picked  up 
on  the  sea-beach  below  the  manse,  which  suggests  that  the  vein 
cannot  be  far  off.  That  afternoon  on  our  homeward  way,  while 
walking  down  a  hillside,  I  noticed  a  curious  looking  boulder, 
which,  on  examination,  seemed  to  be  permeated  with  lead,  and  so 
rotten  that  by  the  help  of  another  stone  I  was  able  to  break 
specimens  off  it.  It  looks,  therefore,  as  though  lead  exists  some- 
where in  the  neighbourhood,  though  whether  in  workable  quantity 
or  not  only  an  expert  can  tell.^ 

Having  drank  some  water  at  the  manse  spring,  we  started  to 
walk  up  Benhogh  in  order  to  visit  the  great  stone  which  lies  upon 
the  top  of  it.  This  stone  Boswell  saw  also,  but  not  Dr.  Johnson, 
who  was  too  heavy  to  climb  the  hill.     Boswell  states  that  the  stone 

*  I  hear  that  analysis  of  the  specimens  •does  not  confirm  these  hopes. 
Probably,  like  myself,  Boswell  and  the  people  of  his  day  were  deceived  by 
some  mineral  closely  resembling  lead  in  weight  and  appearance. 

A  A 


354  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

did  not  repay  his  examination  of  it,  but,  so  far  as  I  can  gather, 
neither  he  nor  the  Doctor  took  the  slightest  interest  in  the  curiosities 
and  the  beauties  of  Nature.  Evidently  they  thought  that  *  the 
proper  study  of  mankind  is  man,'and  such  things  as  scenery,  or  even 
the  remains  of  past  ages,  they  did  not  consider  worthy  of  notice. 

Unlike  Mr.  Boswell,  I  found  that  the  rock  repaid  my  trouble 
exceedingly  well.  It  is  a  very  curious  object,  weighing,  I  suppose, 
some  twenty  or  thirty  tons,  and  supported  by  three  small  stones 
of  about  the  size  of  horses'  heads.  Its  position  where  it  appears 
to-day  may  be  explained  in  several  different  ways.  For  instance,  it 
might  have  rolled  from  the  top  of  the  mount,  which  is  a  little  above 
it,  and  poised  itself  exactly  upon  these  three  stones.  This,  how- 
ever, is  very  unlikely,  for  if  once  the  boulder  had  started  rolling, 
obstacles  of  that  size  would  not  have  stayed  its  course.  Or  scores  of 
thousands  of  years  ago  it  might  have  been  borne  hither  in  the  ice, 
and,  when  the  glacial  period  passed  away,  deposited  neatly  upon  its 
present  supports.  But  neither  do  I  put  faith  in  this  solution,  for 
it  is  not  a  foreign  rock,  and  I  think  that  in  the  course  of  eons 
these  three  small  stones  would  have  crumbled  away  beneath  the 
weight  of  its  mass  and  the  wearing  of  the  weather.  They  are 
large  enough  and  stout  enough  to  bear  the  rock  for  a  period  of,  say, 
two  or  three  thousand  years,  but  not  for  all  those  infinite  ages. 
The  third  suggestion,  which  I  believe  to  be  correct,  is  that  it  was 
set  where  it  is  by  the  hand  of  man ;  indeed,  is  not  the  legend, 
quoted  of  Boswell,  as  to  its  having  been  thrown  there  by  a  giant 
corroborative  of  this  theory  ? 

Doubtless  this  rock,  which  is  of  the  same  character  as  the 
surrounding  formation,  lay  from  the  beginning  where  it  is  to-day, 
and  by  the  aid  of  levers  the  primeval  population  of  the  island 
lifted  it  on  to  its  supports.  Could  they  have  done  so,  probably  they 
would  have  wished  to  set  it  upon  the  very  top  of  the  hill,  a  hundred 
yards  or  so  away ;  but  to  roll  it  thither  proved  beyond  their  strength, 
so,  as  it  was  eminently  suitable  to  their  purpose,  they  placed  it 
where  it  stands.  Within  about  sixty  yards  of  it  is  another,  smaller 
boulder,  also  set  upon  three  stones,  and  at  a  distance  a  third 


SEPTEMBER  355 

'boulder,  likewise  standing  upon  three  stones — coincidences  that  can 
scarcely  be  accidental.  Further,  I  observed  that  on  all  the  highest 
points  of  the  surrounding  hills,  where  they  could  be  most  readily 
seen  from  the  lowland,  are  other  boulders  of  like  character,  though 
whether  or  no  they  stand  upon  three  stones  I  cannot  say,  for  I 
have  never  visited  them.  Lastly,  I  have  seen  a  photograph  of  a 
similar  rock  which  is  to  be  found  somewhere  on  the  mainland,  and 
is  also  arranged  upon  three  stones.  Why  they  were  placed  thus 
nobody  can  say  with  any  certainty,  but  my  own  belief  is  that  they 
formed  the  altars  of  Druids  or  Sun-worshippers,  whereon  the  priests 
may  have  offered  human  sacrifices  or  stood  to  celebrate  their  rites. 

While  I  am  talking  of  the  antiquities  of  Coll,  I  may  mention 
that  when  laying  a  golf  green  my  host  discovered  four  skeletons 
buried  beneath  the  turf.  On  investigation  it  was  found  that  the 
ancient  name  of  the  site  was  Croc-na-Crochadh,  or  Hangman's  Hill. 
Until  the  year  1745  the  Lairds  of  Coll  had  power  of  life  and  death 
over  its  inhabitants,  and  without  doubt  these  bones  belonged  to 
the  victims  of  their  justice  or  their  vengeance. 

In  company  with  a  brother,  once  I  made  a  similar  discovery. 
At  Bradenham  in  this  county  is  a  furze-covered  heath  known  as 
the  Gibbet  Common,  and  in  the  centre  of  it  the  spot  where  stood 
a  gallows.  Digging  in  the  soil  with  our  spuds  here,  we  came  upon 
the  ancient  irons,  and  the  hook,  nearly  worn  through,  to  which 
they  hung.  In  the  horrid  cage  that  enclosed  the  head  we  found, 
moreover,  a  portion  of  the  skull  of  the  murderer  who,  so  says  tradi- 
tion, killed  his  wife  and  child  by  throwing  them  downstairs.  In  his 
curious  work, '  Hanging  in  Chains,' wherein  these  irons  are  described, 
Mr.  Albert  Hartshorne,  F.S.A.,  states  that  there  exists  a  legend  in 
the  neighbourhood  that  this  man  was  hung  up  alive  and  watched 
until  he  died.  I  can  prove,  however,  that  this  is  not  the  case,  for 
on  the  skull  a  mark  of  the  searing  of  a  hot  iron  could  be  seen 
distinctly,  showing  that  the  smith  had  set  them  there  after  death. 
Even  during  the  last  century  hot  irons  would  not  have  been 
welded  on  to  a  living  man.  I  recollect  that  Miss  Mason,  of 
Necton  Hall,  an  old  friend  of  my  family  for  several  generations, 

A  A2 


356  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

whom  I  can  very  well  remember,  and  who  died  at  the  age  of 
ninety,  used  to  tell  a  story  of  how,  when  she  was  young,  she  drove 
across  the  Gibbet  Common  while  these  bones  were  still  swinging  in 
their  cage,  and  noticed  that  a  robin  or  a  starling — I  forget  which — 
had  built  its  nest  among  the  vertebrae.  Some  folk  from  Shipdham, 
it  is  said,  came  and  took  the  young  birds  from  their  grizzly 
brooding-place.  Another  tale  which  I  have  heard  in  the  village  is 
that  certain  relations  of  the  deceased,  who  lived  upon  the  borders  of 
the  Common,  were  so  disturbed  by  the  constant  creaking  of  the 
chains  on  windy  nights  that  at  last  they  cut  the  cage  down  and 
buried  it.  If  so,  to  judge  from  the  worn  condition  of  the  gallows 
hook,  they  must  have  borne  the  noise  with  patience  for  very  many 
years.  These  remains  of  a  barbarous  but  still  recent  age  are  now 
in  the  Norwich  Museum. 

From  where  we  sat  eating  our  frugal  luncheon  by  the  huge 
boulder  that  did  not  interest  Mr.  Boswell  the  view  of  Coll  is  very 
striking,  and  to  all  appearance  arid.  Beneath  us  lay  thousands 
of  masses  of  ice-rounded  gneiss  spotting  the  plains  and  hills  in 
every  direction,  while  beyond  stretched  the  blue  sea,  and  rising 
from  it  here  and  there,  dimly  outlined  in  the  mist,  the  fantastic 
shapes  of  other  islands.  Also  there  are  many  ruins  of  stone 
houses  which  once  were  occupied  by  crofters.  The  most  of  these 
crofter  folk  were  got  rid  of  in  the  year  of  the  great  famine,  or 
afterwards  ;  indeed,  it  is  said  that  the  Laird  of  that  generation 
half  ruined  himself  by  the  cost  of  shipping  them  away  to  America. 
In  those  days  the  population  had  increased  beyond  the  capacity 
of  the  land  to  support  it,  and  hfe  was  hard ;  indeed,  old  folk  who 
can  remember  something  of  them  say  that  many  a  time  have  they 
been  driven  to  seek  their  food  among  the  mussels  and  limpets  of 
the  seashore.  But  all  this  is  part  of  the  Crofter  Question,  which 
is  too  large  and  intricate  a  subject  for  me  to  attempt  to  discuss 
here,  even  had  I  the  necessary  knowledge  of  its  details.  The 
gist  of  it  seems  to  be,  at  any  rate  in  the  Highlands,  and 
I  have  observed  the  same  thing  among  the  natives  of  South 
Africa,  that  the  population  has  a  tendency  to  increase  to  the 


SEPTEMBER  357 

extreme  limit  of  the  productive  or  feeding  power  of  the  land  in 
good  seasons,  that  is,  if  wars  and  epidemics  are  absent.  Then 
come  famines  from  failure  of  crops,  or  other  distresses,  and  at 
once  the  problem  presents  itself  in  an  acute  form.  With  it 
arise  also  the  inevitable  quarrels  between  the  owners  and  the 
occupiers  of  the  soil. 

September  27. — Yesterday  was  our  last  day's  shooting.  In 
looking  for  partridge  on  the  Crossapol  bents  we  came  upon  a  spot 
so  remarkable  that  it  deserves  mention.  There,  in  the  heart  of 
the  bents,  with  a  ridge  between  it  and  the  sea,  lay  a  circular  plain 
burled  in  white  sand,  which  gave  to  it  an  appearance  that  can  only 
be  called  weird.  Indeed,  were  I  an  artist  wishing  to  depict  the 
site  of  the  city  from  which  Lot  fled,  I  should  find  inspiration  in 
that  plain.  Also  here  there  was,  if  not  a  city,  at  least  a  dwelling- 
place  of  men,  for  the  remains  of  houses  are  to  be  seen  buried  in 
the  blowing  sand,  and,  what  is  more  curious  still,  the  outlines  of 
round  huts.  Who  built  these  huts  or  to  what  age  they  belong 
nobody  seems  to  know. 

This  morning  we  bid  farewell  to  our  host  and  departed  south. 
But  it  is  not  always  easy  to  escape  from  Coll,  and  in  the  grey  dark 
of  a  winter  morning  many  and  anxious  are  the  inquiries  as  to  the 
strength  and  direction  of  the  wind. 

'  I  doubt  ye'll  no  win  to  her.  It's  blavv'in'  hard  from  the  sou'- 
east,'  said  the  old  butler,  '  her '  being,  of  course,  the  steamer, 
which  should  be  off  Ardnagour  about  eight  o'clock.  However,  we 
breakfasted  and  started.  When  we  arrived  at  the  harbour  there 
were  no  signs  of  the  Fi?igal,  but  presently  along  the  cable  came  the 
ominous  intelligence  that  she  had  been  unable  to  communicate 
with  Tiree,  the  island  beyond  us.  Now  we  began  to  think  that  it 
would  be  our  fate  to  stop  on  Coll  for  longer  than  we  were  expected. 

There  are  terrible  tales  of  the  adventures  of  visitors  attempting 
to  quit  Coll.  One  gentleman,  ^\Jlo  had  most  urgent  reasons  for 
reaching  the  mainland,  is  said  to  have  driven  to  that  harbour 
three  times  a  week  for  a  fortnight,  only  on  each  occasion  to  see 


358  A  PARMER'S   YEAR 

the  steamer  go  hooting  past.  It  is  told,  indeed,  that  people 
have  been  detained  for  six  weeks ;  but  this  was  in  the  old  days 
of  the  sailing  packet,  when  there  was  no  possibility  of  commu- 
nicating with  other  shores  even  by  telegraph.  As  the  boatmen, 
however,  were  of  opinion  that  the  steamer  would  put  in,  we 
followed  the  mails  and  luggage  into  a  large  flat-bottomed  boat 
and  were  rowed  away  across  the  harbour  to  the  shelter  of  some 
rocks  upon  the  further  side.  Here  we  lay  for  three-quarters  of  an 
hour  or  more,  until,  to  our  relief,  we  heard  the  Fi7igaVs  sireri 
going  beyond  the  point,  and  knew  that  thereby  she  was  warning 
us  to  be  ready. 

Presently  in  she  came  and  dropped  anchor,  and  we  started 
towards  her,  pitching  and  tossing  across  the  stormy  water.  It 
requires  a  good  deal  of  skill  to  bring  a  boat  alongside  without 
accident  in  such  heavy  weather,  and  when  he  jumps  for  the  vessel 
as  she  rolls  towards  him  the  passenger  needs  agility  and  decision. 
However,  we  all  scrambled  aboard  without  mishap,  and  steamed 
to  Oban  in  pouring  rain. 

And  so  good-bye  to  the  Hebrides  and  holidays.  '  Coll  for  my 
money,'  said  Dr.  Johnson — before  he  had  been  there — and  after 
experience  heartily  do  I  endorse  his  remark.  It  is  a  delightful  spot, 
and,  to  say  nothing  of  much  kindness,  he  who  sojourns  there 
meets  Nature  face  to  face. 

September  29. — ^Yesterday  I  arrived  at  Upp  Hall,  in  Hertford- 
shire, and  to-day  I  walked  with  my  host,  Mr.  Charles  Longman, 
to  inspect  a  neighbouring  farm.  Leaving  Oban  in  pouring  rain,  I 
find  the  home  counties  absolutely  dried  up  by  drought.  The  swede 
crop  is  blue  with  blight,  few  of  the  bulbs  being  larger  than  apples ; 
a  strange  contrast  indeed  to  the  magnificent  roots  which  I  saw 
in  Coll.  The  mangolds  also  are  going  back,  and  the  land  is  so 
hard  that  no  plough  can  work  the  fields.  As  we  passed,  two  horses 
were  dragging  a  harrow  over  a^ploughed  fallow,  and  I  could  see 
that  they  simply  spent  their  strength  in  turning  the  lumps  of  soil 
without  breaking  up  one  of  them.     It  is  not,  however,  the  lack 


SEPTEMBER  J^c) 

of  rain  only  that  has  caused  this  severe  water  famine  in  Hertford- 
shire, for,  as  Sir  John  Evans  has  pointed  out  in  various  letters  to 
the  Times,  the  London  companies  are  responsible  for  a  great  deal  of 
the  trouble.  I  am  told  that  by  means  of  deep  wells  and  in  other 
ways  they  are  literally  draining  the  district,  and  if  the  present  state 
of  things  is  allowed  to  go  on  there  is  great  risk  that  within  a  number 
of  years,  which  can  be  reckoned,  Hertfordshire  will  only  have 
enough  water  for  the  barest  necessities.  Some  people  say,  indeed, 
that  it  must  become  a  desert.  At  least  this  is  certain,  that  streams 
which  used  to  run,  run  no  longer,  that  ponds  are  drying  up,  and 
that  wells  in  which  was  plenty  of  water  are  now  dry  and  must  be 
either  deepened  or  abandoned.  Indeed  the  process  is  going  on 
at  the  back  of  this  house,  where,  as  the  water  suddenly  showed 
symptoms  of  giving  out,  it  has  been  found  necessary  to  sink  the 
bore  another  eighty  or  a  hundred  feet. 

Undoubtedly  the  inhabitants  of  this  part  of  Hertfordshire  are 
becoming  seriously  alarmed  as  day  by  day  they  see  the  water  upon 
which  they  depend  being  pumped  away  to  London,  but  whether 
they  will  succeed  in  persuading  Parliament  to  listen  to  their 
grievances  is  a  matter  about  which  I  can  express  no  opinion. 
Unfortunately,  whenever  one  set  of  experts  declare  that  a  public 
catastrophe  of  the  sort  is  owing  to  certain  causes,  another  set  of 
experts  arise  who  explain  in  the  largest  possible  print  that  the 
first  set  are  donkeys,  if  not  evilly  disposed  lunatics.  Of  this  state 
of  affairs  the  central  authority,  which  does  not  want  to  be 
bothered,  not  unnaturally  hastens  to  avail  itself.  *  If  you  gentle- 
men can't  agree,'  it  says,  *  you  can  hardly  expect  me  to  interfere,' 
and  so  the  thing  goes  on  till  something  happens,  which,  in  the 
case  of  the  Hertfordshire  water  supply,  will  not,  I  understand,  be 
for  very  long. 

From  time  to  time  there  is  much  controversy  in  the  Press  and 
elsewhere  as  to  the  genuineness  of  the  claims  of  the  Dowsers^  who 
assert  that  they  are  able  to  discover  the  whereabouts  of  water  by 
means  of  a  divining  rod,  that  is  a  twig  which  they  hold  in  the  hand. 
This  twig,  under  the  influence  of  their  magic  or  magnetic  power, 


360  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

is  alleged  to  bend  whenever  they  pass  over  a  spot  where  a  spring 
lies  hid.  The  experiment  was  tried  here  at  Upp  Hall,  in  1894,  in 
the  presence  of  witnesses  and  with  the  following  results.  A  noted 
dowser  was  retained  and  dowsed  about  the  house.  In  the  moat 
garden  the  twig  tilted  upwards  so  violently  that  it  broke,  indicating, 
so  said  the  prophet,  that  a  very  strong  spring  existed  near  to  the 
surface.  On  the  faith  of  his  guarantee  a  well  was  sunk,  but,  when 
it  had  reached  a  depth  of  sixty  feet,  as  no  spring  either  strong  or 
weak  was  met  with,  the  pit  was  filled  in  again.  This  authenticated 
story  is  instructive,  and  suggests  that  the  supernatural  powers  of 
dowsers  are  not  beyond  question. 

Compared  with  those  which  we  see  in  our  part  of  Norfolk, 
the  fields  here  are  enormous,  measuring  from  twenty  up  to  a 
hundred  acres  in  extent.  As  a  consequence,  steam  ploughs  that 
are  practically  useless  on  much  of  our  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  land, 
because  of  the  great  amount  of  room  which  they  occupy  at  the 
sides  of  the  fields  and  their  inability  to  deal  with  angles  and 
corners,  can  in  this  district  be  used  to  extraordinary  advantage. 
Just  now,  when  the  land  is  too  hard  for  horses  to  be  able  to  break 
it,  these  cultivators  are  in  great  demand.  A  pair  of  them  were  at 
work  on  one  of  the  fields  of  this  farm,  and,  seated  on  the  drag,  I 
made  the  journey  from  one  steamer  to  the  other,  a  distance  of 
several  hundred  yards.  It  cannot  be  recommended  as  a  luxurious 
method  of  locomotion,  especially  when  the  wire  rope  slips  on  the 
drum  and  when  the  cultivator  starts  forward  with  a  sudden  plunge  ; 
but  it  is  extraordinary  to  see  the  great  hooks,  dragged  by  a  strength 
equivalent  to  that  of  fourteen  horses,  tearing  up  the  iron  soil  to  a 
depth  of  seven  inches.  The  drag  in  use  to-day  is  made  on  the 
same  principle  as  our  ordinary  three-horse  cultivator,  but  in  addi- 
tion to  this  the  engines  work  a  plough,  or  rather  a  bit  of  machinery, 
to  the  frame  of  which  are  attached  five  ploughshares  arranged  side 
by  side,  each  one  of  them  a  little  in  front  of  the  last.  However, 
the  land  is  too  hard  even  for  these  giant  ploughs,  for  in  the  next 
field  lies  the  instrument,  broken  in  the  attempt  to  use  it.  I  under- 
stand that  under  favourable  conditions  a  pair  of  these  steamers 


SEPTEMBER  361 

can  deal  with  as  much  as  twenty  acres  of  land  a  day,  working  it 
first  from  end  to  end  and  then  across,  at  a  cost  of  about  ten 
shillings  per  acre  cultivated. 

In  this  county  the  stacks  are  infinitely  better  built  than  those 
of  my  neighbourhood,  being  constructed  much  broader  in  the  base 
and  lower,  which  gives  them  a  superior  appearance  and  more 
stability.  I  do  not  know,  however,  whether  this  plan  of  erecting 
very  thick  stacks  answers  well  when  the  corn  is  carried  in  a  damp 
season,  as  the  air  can  hardly  penetrate  so  far  to  dry  the  sheaves. 

The  farming  in  these  parts  is  chiefly  of  cereal  crops,  but  I 
imagine  that  agriculturists  here  owe  such  prosperity  as  they 
possess  to  the  nearness  of  the  London  market.  Many  of  them 
keep  large  herds  of  cows  and  send  up  the  milk  by  train ;  also  they 
supply  hay  and  straw  in  great  quantities  to  the  liverymen,  buying 
back  manure  from  the  London  stables  to  fertilise  the  land.  Some 
of  these  farmers  have  migrated  from  Cornwall,  where  rent  is  very 
high — as  much  as  three  or  four  pounds  the  acre,  I  am  told — to  this 
district,  which,  being  for  the  most  part  heavy  corn  land,  commands 
only  from  fifteen  shillings  to  a  pound  an  acre.  I  understand  that 
at  these  prices  energetic  men  are  doing  well.  Labour  here, 
however,  seems  to  be  growing  scarcer  every  day,  and  without 
labour  what  is  to  become  of  the  land  ? 

September  30. — To-day  is  cold  and  drizzly  but  there  is  no  real 
i-ain.  The  method  adopted  to  deepen  the  well  here  is  one  of  great 
ingenuity.  At  the  bottom  of  the  pit,  eighty  or  ninety  feet  down, 
stands  a  man,  while  at  the  top  are  several  other  men  with  a  wind- 
lass. The  deepening  instrument  is  a  steel  chisel  or  cutter  weigh- 
ing about  thirty  pounds.  The  windlass  is  wound  up  for  a  certain 
distance,  lifting  the  chisel.  Then  the  rope  is  let  run,  and  away  it 
falls,  cutting  its  way  into  the  chalk  and  smashing  any  flints  with 
which  it  may  come  in  contact.  When  it  has  loosened  the  sub- 
stances to  a  certain  depth  it  is  withdrawn,  and  a  valved  tube  is 
dropped  down  in  its  place,  which  retains  the  chalk  sludge  that 
flows  into  it  by  a  simple  but  eflective  action  of  the  valve.     Then 


362  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

the  tube  is  hauled  to  the  surface  and  emptied  of  its  contents,  and 
the  process  recommences.  When  a  spring  of  water  has  been  struck 
strong  enough  to  fill  the  narrow  bore  thus  drilled  through  the 
chalk  and  keep  it  full  in  spite  of  any  reasonable  amount  of  pump- 
ing, a  pipe  will  be  thrust  down  the  cavity  to  a  convenient  depth  and 
connected  with  the  pump.  As  the  London  companies  lower  the 
level  of  the  water  in  the  moisture-bearing  strata,  the  process  described 
above  can  of  course  be  repeated  till  a  depth  is  reached  at  which  it 
becomes  impossible  to  work  the  tools. 

This  afternoon  I  went  with  a  friend,  who  is  the  honorary  secre- 
tary of  a  newly  formed  angling  club,  to  inspect  a  trout  stream  in  this 
neighbourhood  which  has  recently  been  stocked  with  fish.  Never 
before  did  I  understand  how  arduous  and  expensive  is  this  task  of 
converting  a  coarse-fish  river  into  a  trout  water.  First  the  common 
fish,  and  especially  the  pike,  must  be  captured,  which,  as  the  use 
of  dynamite  is  illegal,  is  in  itself  no  easy  matter.  I  forget  the  num- 
ber of  pike  which  have  already  been  removed  from  these  few  miles 
of  brook,  but  it  is  not  small.  After  most  of  the  pike  are  ex- 
tracted— for  it  takes  years  to  be  rid  of  them  altogether — the  bed 
of  the  stream  must  be  cleaned.  Then  comes  its  re-stocking  with 
thousands  of  young  trout  bought  at  a  hatchery ;  the  making  of 
suitable  spawning  beds  by  the  carting  of  gravel  into  the  water,  or 
the  stirring  up  and  washing  of  such  stone  as  already  exists  there ; 
the  sowing  of  water-weeds  suitable  to  the  collection  of  food  such 
as  trout  love,  and  so  forth.  All  these  things  are  necessary  if  trout- 
fishing  is  to  be  enjoyed  in  such  a  stream,  yet  so  much  preparation 
gives  a  certain  artificiality  to  the  final  result. 

I  am  not  a  great  fisherman,  for  the  chance  of  much  of  that 
delightful  sport  has  not  come  my  way,  but  while  my  friend  and 
the  water-bailiff  are  discussing  theadvisability  of  the  destruction  of 
three  herons  that  haunt  the  stream  (poor  herons  !)  my  mind 
wanders  back  to  certain  experiences  in  Iceland  when,  towards  mid- 
night, the  light  turned  ghastly  blue,  and  for  a  while  was  so  pale  upon 
the  foaming  river's  face  that  it  became  difficult  to  see  the  fly  dancing 
in  the  black  eddy  of  the  fosse.  Hark  !  the  sound  of  whistling  wings 


SEPTEMBER  363 

and  there  above  a  pair  of  wild  duck  travel  like  arrows  from  the  sea. 
The  water,  too,  roars  in  the  cataract  and  murmurs  against  the  stones, 
and  now  and  again  comes  a  splash  as  a  heavy  salmon  or  a  sea-trout 
springs  into  the  air  and  falls  into  the  darkling  fosse.  But  there  is  no 
other  sound,  no  sound  of  man  at  least,  and  no  sign  of  him  either, 
for  the  little  stead  lies  more  than  a  mile  away.  Only  the  tremendous 
outline  of  the  great  mountains  and  the  sweep  of  the  flowery  mead 
beneath,  only  the  eternal  rush  of  the  river  and  the  whisper  of  the 
perfumed  wind,  and,  brooding  about  all,  that  blue  and  spiritual 
light — a  light  in  which  ghosts  might  walk  their  world  again. 


.364  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 


OCTOBER 

October  4. — On  my  return  to  Ditchingham  I  find  that  the  fierce 
drought  still  prevails,  although  the  country  here  is  not  quite  so 
much  burnt  up  as  is  the  case  in  Hertfordshire.  The  pastures  are 
perfectly  brown,  almost  as  brown  as  the  African  veld  in  winter ; 
indeed,  if  these  seasons  are  to  go  on  I  believe  that  it  would  pay  to 
sow  with  our  mixtures  a  proportion  of  seed  taken  from  the  deep- 
rooted  grasses  which  grow  in  the  colder  parts  of  the  South  African 
High  Veld.  The  stock  I  find  looking  well,  but  although  they 
are  liberally  supplied  with  cotton  cake,  the  cows,  or  rather  their 
milk  supplies,  are  shrinking  sadly  in  this  bitter  drought. 

Since  harvest  about  250  loads  of  manure  have  been  carted 
from  the  yards  direct  to  the  various  fields  where  they  are  to  be 
spread,  and  sundry  dykes  on  the  marshland  have  been  drawn. 
Also  a  little  thrashing  has  been  done  both  here  and  at  Bedingham, 
and  we  have  sold  some  barley  at  sixteen  shillings  and  fifteen 
shillings  the  coomb,  according  to  its  quality.  A  neighbouring 
farmer,  whose  land  marches  with  my  own,  as  I  hear,  realised  eighteen 
shillings  a  coomb  for  barley  which  he  thrashed  upon  the  field ; 
but  I  am  told  that  his  crop,  although  the  sample  was  good,  ran 
out  only  at  the  miserable  total  of  four  coombs  an  acre.  This  year 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  straw,  but  so  far  the  cast  does  not  seem 
to  be  heavy.  The  men  with  the  thrashing  engine  complain  much, 
as  they  are  paid  per  the  score  coomb  actually  realised,  and 
it  takes  them  a  long  while  to  work  this  great  bulk  of  straw  through 
the  machine. 

Store  cattle  have  dropped  heavily  in  price,  and  I  am  glad  that 
ive  bought  none  before  harvest,   as  it  is  evident,  owing  to  the 


OCTOBER  365 

wonderful  variations  of  the  British  climate,  that  we  shall  be  short 
both  of  feed  and  roots.  The  Bedingham  ox,  Royal  Duke,  which 
I  have  been  cherishing  all  this  year,  is  now  in  a  box  at  the  All 
Hallows  farm.  It  is  curious  that  he  should  have  taken  the  first 
prize  at  the  North  Suffolk  Association  Show,  as  he  is  a  nervous 
beast  and,  after  being  moved  here  several  days  previous  to  the 
competition,  was* so  upset  by  the  change  and  the  heat  that  he 
refused  to  take  his  food. 

As  might  be  expected  in  such  a  season  the  mustard  which  I 
drilled  on  to  the  pease  stubbles,  No.  37  All  Hallows  and  No.  43 
Baker's,  appears  to  be  an  almost  total  failure  owing  to  the  drought, 
although,  being  a  stubborn  crop,  it  may  still  pick  up  should  we 
get  rain  within  a  reasonable  time.  Somewhat  to  my  surprise, 
however,  for  it  is  a  water-loving  plant,  the  little  piece  of  maize 
which  was  sown  on  No.  21,  where  the  vetches  were  fed  off  by 
sheep,  is  throwing  up  a  welcome  breadth  of  green  stuff.  The 
vetches,  which  were  harvested  off  the  remainder  of  the  same  field, 
have  been  thrashed,  but  there  seems  to  be  no  market  for  them 
this  year. 

October  5. — To-day  we  are  ploughing  on  the  bean  stubble, 
No.  26,  for  wheat,  and  on  Baker's,  No.  42,  for  vetches,  but  with 
the  soil  in  its  present  condition  it  is  dreadfully  hard  work  for  the 
horses.  This  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham,  and  found  Moore 
likewise  ploughing  for  wheat  upon  the  bean  stubble.  No.  14. 
Here  the  cattle  look  well ;  also  the  beet  and  the  kohl-rabi,  a  most 
valuable  crop  in  such  a  season,  have  stood  the  drought  better  than 
was  to  be  expected.  Young  Moore  and  the  new  man,  Whitrup, 
are  engaged  in  clearing  the  brushwood  rubbish  from  the  sides  of 
the  dykes  before  they  fill  up  with  water,  gathering  it  into  heaps 
for  the  burning.  The  young  things  with  the  colts  are  feeding  on 
the  wheat  stubbles,  where  they  manage  to  fill  themselves  with  the 
green  weeds  and  the  many  ears  of  corn  which  seem  to  have 
escaped  the  attention  of  the  gleaners.  But  perhaps  none  have 
been  here,  for  nowadays  I  do  not  think  that  in  these  parts  many 


266  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

people  take  the  trouble  to  glean ;  I  suppose  corn  Is  so  cheap  that 
the  results  are  no  longer  worth  the  time  expended. 

The  shed  is  not  yet  up  over  the  cattle-yard,  but  the  posts  have 
been  sunk  into  position  to  carry  the  roof. 

October  6. — To-day  is  dull,  but  there  is  no  break  in  the 
drought  Buck,  whom  I  found  hedge  clipping,  tells  me  that  it  is 
about  thirty-two  years  since  there  was  such  an  autumn  *  dry '  as 
that  which  prevails  at  present.  In  the  season  which  he  speaks 
of,  however,  a  good  rain  fell  in  the  middle  of  harvest,  for  he 
remembers  that  it  started  the  potatoes  into  a  second  growth. 
After  that  rain  the  dry  was  so  sharp  that  very  few  farmers  succeeded 
in  sowing  their  wheat  before  the  following  spring. 

These  are  the  results  of  the  thrashing  up  to  the  present : 
From  the  three-and-a-half  acre.  Church  Close  field.  No.  33,  and 
two  acres  of  the  Milestone  field.  No.  25,  fifty-one  coombs  of 
barley,  or  about  nine  coombs  to  the  acre,  of  which  forty-eight 
coombs  were  sold  at  sixteen  and  sixpence  per  coomb. 

From  the  Glebe  land  five-acre.  No.  40,  forty-four  coombs  of 
oats,  which  we  shall  consume  at  home — not  a  bad  return  from 
this  scaldy  soil. 

From  about  two  acres  of  the  Home  Farm  field,  No.  26,  twenty 
coombs  of  beans  for  seed  and  use,  and  from  a  little  piece  of 
No.  25,  about  twelve  coombs  of  wheat  for  seed. 

From  six  acres  of  the  Vinery  field,  No.  41  on  Baker's,  forty- 
four  coombs  of  barley.  This  is  a  poor  return,  but  the  barleys  seem 
to  have  suffered  from  the  wet  and  cold  at  the  beginning  of  the 
y^ar,  and  to  have  died  too  quickly  owing  to  the  summer  drought, 
with  the  result  that  a  good  many  of  the  kernels  are  shrivelled. 

At  Bedingham  we  have  thrashed  thirty-five  coombs  of  barley 
off  seven  acres  of  land — only  five  coombs  an  acre — of  which  thirty- 
four  coombs  sold  at  fifteen  shillings  a  coomb.  From  three  acres 
of  No.  13  we  obtained  thirty  coombs  of  oats  for  home  use,  and 
from  a  little  surplus  stack  saved  from  something  over  an  acre  of 
land  about  fifteen  coombs  of  wheat 


OCTOBER  367 

Until  all  the  corns  have  been  thrashed  and  sold,  however,  it  is 
difficult  to  estimate  the  exact  results. 

October  11. — A  friend  whom  I  met  out  shooting  last  Saturday 
told  me  that,  since  the  beginning  of  this  month,  a  hen  pheasant 
has  been  found  in  the  vicarage  garden  of  his  parish  sitting  upon 
six  eggs.  This  seems  a  curious  mistake  for  a  bird  to  make,  but 
I  suppose  that  it  is  due  to  the  extraordinary  warmth  of  the  season. 

A  big  D — for  drought — might  be  written  across  my  diary.  I 
can  scarcely  bear  to  go  to  look  at  the  root-fields,  it  is  so  pitiful  to 
see  the  bulbs  shrivelling  up  to  nothing  and  the  sere  leaves  falling 
from  them  to  the  ground.  A  writer  in  the  local  paper  estimates 
that  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  feed  in  Norfolk  alone  20,000  fewer 
cattle  will  be  fatted  this  year  than  last.  Also  all  store  animals 
are  falling  rapidly  in  price,  and  those  who  held  their  lambs  begin 
to  suffer  from  regrets. 

We  still  plough,  or  try  to,  but  the  operation  affords  a  curious 
side.  The  horses  pant  and  sweat,  the  man  struggles  over  the 
rough  clods,  and  as  the  implement  bumps  and  jumps  through  the 
iron  soil  a  cloud  of  fine  dust  rises  from  its  share. 

To-day  I  was  talking  to  one  of  my  men  as  he  dressed  the 
barley  in  Baker's  barn,  and  he  tells  me  that  for  twenty  years  of 
his  life  he  was  a  farmer  and  his  own  master.  When  he  began 
farming  with  some  capital  that  he  had  saved  and,  I  think, 
inherited,  he  says  that  he  paid  4/.  the  acre  for  his  land.  Even 
at  this  rent  he  did  so  well  that  he  was  able  to  put  by  enough  to 
enable  him  to  hire  a  larger  farm.  On  this  second  farm  he  was 
still  successful,  and  in  course  of  time  he  took  a  third  and  yet 
larger  farm  at  a  low  rent,  but  with  the  land  in  bad  order.  Then 
came  the  disastrous  seasons  and  the  floods,  and,  to  make  matters 
worse,  he  had  a  run  of  dreadful  luck  with  his  cattle.  In  short, 
everything  went  against  him,  and  after  twenty  years  of  work  all 
his  savings  and  capital  were  lost  and  he  was  forced  to  return  to 
the  land  again  as  a  labourer. 

There  is  nothing  sensational  about  it,  but  this  story  strikes  me 


368  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

as  very  sad,  although  of  a  sufficiently  common  order.  It  is 
wonderful  how  my  friend  manages  to  remain  of  so  cheerful  ^ 
disposition  under  the  weight  of  such  a  disappointment  in  life,  but 
I  suppose  that  the  back  is  fitted  to  the  burden.  Such 
toilers  ought  to  have  an  old  age  pension  to  look  forward  to, 
collected  from  their  earnings  by  insurance  in  the  good  time  of 
strength, '  or  ever  the  evil  days  come  and  the  grasshopper  shall  be 
a  burden.'  As  it  is,  unless  they  have  been  able  to  save,  we 
know  what  they  must  expect. 

October  12. — Some  rain  at  last  !  It  fell  last  night,  and  thank- 
ful we  were  to  see  it.  To-day  I  went  to  lunch  at  Earlham  Hall, 
near  Norwich.  Although  it  is  by  no  means  large,  to  my  mind 
this  is  in  its  way  one  of  the  most  beautiful  houses  that  I  have 
seen  in  Norfolk.  Its  aspect  from  the  road  is  disappointing,  for 
one  of  the  Quaker  Gurneys  whitewashed  it,  but  on  the  garden 
side  the  mellow  brick  is  left.  The  house  is  Jacobean,  and  still 
belongs  to  the  Bacon  family,  but,  oddly  enough,  it  has  been  rented 
by  successive  generations  of  the  Gurneys  for  about  a  hundred  and 
ten  years.  One  of  the  charms  of  this  place  is  the  river  that  runs 
below  the  lawns,  with  a  heronry  upon  its  bank.  But  the  house 
itself,  as  readers  of  '  The  Gurneys  of  Earlham '  will  know,  is  stored 
with  memories.  Here  the  sainted  Elizabeth  Fry,  whose  portrait 
hangs  upon  the  walls,  spent  her  youth.  She  died  in  1845,  but 
her  memory  will  live  on  for  many  a  generation  as  one  of  the  half- 
angelic  beings  who,  in  pursuit  of  their  mission  of  charity  and  love, 
did  not  shrink  even  from  plunging  into  such  an  inferno  as  Newgate 
offered  at  the  beginning  of  this  century. 

It  is  impossible  to  look  at  that  old  hall  and  the  broad  stairway 
of  Earlham  without  imagining  them  peopled  by  Elizabeth  and  all 
her  kin,  whose  young  voices  used  to  echo  there.  There  is  some- 
thing terribly  pathetic  about  these  ancient  houses.^ 

*  Owing  to  recent  deaths  Earlham  Hall,  after  its  long  lease  of  one 
hundred  and  ten  years,  is  to  let  again  at  last.  So  I  am  told,  at  least,  in  June 
1899. 


OCTOBER  369 

October  14. — This  afternoon  we  have  been  drilling  rye,  some 
by  itself,  and  some  mixed  with  vetches,  in  that  portion  of  field 
No.  42  on  Baker's  which  was  under  oats.  This  is  a  new  crop  to 
us,  but  we  are  growing  it  now  to  furnish  early  sheep  feed.  The 
land,  which  has  not  been  manured,  although  it  is  very  dry,  seems 
to  be  in  nice  order  now  that  the  roller  and  harrow  have  been 
over  it. 

The  papers  are  constantly  talking  of  tuberculosis  in  cows  and 
the  tuberculin  test.  Till  within  the  last  year  or  so  I  do  not  ever 
remember  hearing  of  the  one  or  the  other ;  but  science  is  always 
revealing  fresh  horrors  to  our  sight,  and  I  have  little  doubt  but 
that  the  experts  speak  truth  when  they  say  that  a  great  deal  of 
consumption  is  caused  by  tuberculous  milk.  For  aught  I  know 
•one  consumes  it  daily  in  one's  tea,  and  my  best  red-polls  may  be 
afflicted  with  this  abominable  disease.  But  how  are  we  to  find 
•out  ?  It  is  all  very  well  to  talk  of  tuberculin,  but  nine  people  out 
of  ten  have  not  the  faintest  idea  what  tuberculin  is,  and  I 
imagine  that  even  nine  veterinaries  out  of  ten  would  look  a 
little  vacant  if  suddenly  asked  to  apply  the  test  to  a  herd  of 
cows.  If  these  scientific  operations  are  to  be  carried  out,  there 
ought  to  be  in  every  county  Government  laboratories  to  which 
farmers  could  apply  for  instruction  and  assistance.  Moreover, 
there  ought  to  be  Government  inspectors  to  see  that  they  did 
apply,  and  to  assess  damages  when  it  became  necessary  to  destroy 
•affected  animals.  It  is  useless  to  leave  it  to  the  farmers  them- 
selves to  take  the  initiative,  as  not  one  in  twenty  would  ever 
bother  his  head  about  the  matter — indeed,  I  doubt  whether  some 
would  stir  if  a  scientific  friend  were  to  prove  to  them  that  their 
•cattle  were  a  walking  mass  of  tuberculosis.  I  believe  that  there 
•exist  inspectors  of  dairies,  though  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  one  of 
them  inspecting  my  dairy,  and  I  doubt  whether  the  duty  is  half 
so  efficiently  or  strictly  performed  as  it  ought  to  be.  I  know  that 
when  I  took  over  this  farm  I  found  that  into  the  pond  from  which 
the  cows  drank  was  led  the  entire  sewage  of  a  yard.     I  daresay 

BB 


370  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

that  any  inspector  who  took  an  interest  in  his  work  could  make 
even  worse  discoveries  in  the  Eastern  counties.^ 

October  i6. — Last  night  it  was  wet,  and  this  morning  very 
wet.  The  rain  has  come  at  last,  and  with  it  the  autumn,  for  the 
beeches  have  turned  suddenly  sere  and  the  wood-pigeons  begin 
to  haunt  the  lawn,  although  not  in  anything  like  the  numbers  in 
which  I  have  sometimes  seen  them.  Generally  they  appear  at 
the  dinner-hour,  or  on  Sunday,  when  there  are  no  gardeners  about, 
t'irst  one  flies  down  from  the  trees  and  begins  to  hunt  for  beech- 
mast  among  the  fallen  leaves ;  then  comes  another  and  another, 
until  the  whole  lawn  is  dotted  with  their  beautiful  blue  shapes ; 
indeed,  I  have  counted  up  to  a  hundred  of  them  at  one  time. 
They  do  not  mind  the  house,  for  they  will  strut  about  quite  close 
to  the  windows,  but  their  sentinels  are  set  upon  the  surrounding 
trees,  and  the  moment  that  a  human  being  appears,  off  they  fly 
with  a  mighty  clapping  of  wings. 

It  is  a  dreary  day — a  day  when  the  mind  takes  the  colour 
of  the  sky  and  dwells,  not  on  successes,  but  on  failures,  not  on 
hopes  of  happiness,  but  on  recollections  of  sorrow  and  dreary 
prognostications.  The  lesson  that  is  hid  in  the  turmoil  of  the  tem- 
pest, the  lashing  of  the  rain,  the  falling  leaves,  the  dying  flowers, 
and  the  heavy  ashen  sky  brooding  over  all,  becomes  painfully  and 
persistently  obvious.  '  Summer  has  gone,'  the  raving  wind  seems 
to  say — ^ycur  summer.  You  have  seen  your  best  days,  you  are 
wearing  out  with  work  and  worry  and  responsibilities ;  and — do 
you  hear  ? — you  are  not  like  these,  there  is  no  earthly  spring  to 
come  {ox  you.' 

'Do  not  frighten  the  poor  fugitive  creatures,'  answers  the  beating 
rain.     *  I  knew  their  kind  a  thousand  generations  gone,  but  they 

*  Retribution  has  overtaken  me  and  I  must  pay  for  these  remarks.  An 
inspector  (who  knew  them  not)  has  just  descended  upon  me  and  requested  me 
to  be  good  enough  to  alter  a  certain  surface  drain  in  one  of  my  own  cowhouses.  I 
shall  comply  with  much  pleasure,  delighted  to  reflect,  indeed,  that  the  sanitary 
authorities  have  developed  such  activity.  They  will,  I  think,  find  many  worse 
things  than  my  drain  to  occupy  them.     H.  R.  II.,  1S99. 


OCTOBER       '  3ti 

Wetie  wrapped  in  skins  and  lived  in  a  hole  on  the  hillside  yonder, 
not  in  a  brick  box.  Yes,  and  I  know  the  end  of  them  allj  for  I  drive 
upon  their  graves  and  wash  their  bones.  Let  them  be  !  Winter  is 
before  them — beautiful,  whitej  silent  winter.' 

Well,  better  perhaps  the  snow's  peace  and  the  bonds  of  the 
death-frost  than  this  autumn  rage  of  confusion  and  decay. 

With  what  terror  must  our  savage  forefathers  have  looked 
forward  to  the  coming  of  winter,  with  its  dreadful  darkness,  its  cold, 
its  loneliness,  its  prowling  enemies  and  ravening  beasts?  What 
must  it  have  been  even  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  right  down  to  the 
last  century,  when  fireplaces  in  the  houses  were  very  few,  and  scant 
tallow  dips  furnished  the  only  illumination ;  when  the  roads  were 
such  that  it  took  four  strong  farm-horses  to  drag  a  coach  along 
them ;  when  there  was  no  fresh  meat  for  food,  and  cut-throat  foot- 
pads lurked  in  the  neighbouring  thicket  ?  To  this  day  our  highly 
civilised  race  has  not  got  over  its  dread  of  winter  and  the  gloom 
with  which  it  is  associated.  Even  among  grown  men  there  are 
few  whom  the  horror  of  the  dark  does  not  take  hold  of  from  time 
to  time,  or  even  of  the  night  when  it  is  not  dark.  Not  long  ago 
I  asked  a  friend,  whose  name  would  be  known  to  every  reader  of 
this  book,  and  whom  one  would  certainly  not  associate  with  such 
fears,  whether  he  ever  felt  afraid  of  being  alone  at  night.  He 
confessed  to  me  that  he  did — that  occasionally,  when  he  sat 
working  late,  a  panic  would  seize  him,  causing  him  to  turn  out  the 
lights  and  slip  away  straight  to  bed.  I  believe  that  his  experience 
is  not  by  any  means  exceptional.  We  come  of  a  Northern  stock, 
and  as  all  students  of  the  Sagas,  that  magnificent  but  neglected 
literature,  will  know,  to  our  Norse  ancestors  some  few  generations 
since  the  dark  of  the  long  winter  was  a  fearful  thing,  peopled 
with  malevolent,  able-bodied  trolls  and  with  ghosts  of  the 
dead. 

Last  night  Hood  was  knocked  down  by  a  heifer,  although  he 
escaped  with  nothing  worse  than  an  injured  foot.  The  heifer  was 
in  difficulties  with  her  first  calf  and  actually  fainted  away.  When 
she  came  to  herself,  either  she  had  forgotten  about  the  calf,  or^- 


372  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

with  good  reason — she  attributed  her  discomfort  to  its  presence. 
At  any  rate  she  attacked  it  fiercely,  knocking  the  poor  little 
creature  and  Hood  into  a  corner  of  the  hospital,  and  roaring  so 
loudly  that,  although  these  events  took  place  at  the  dead  of  night, 
people  in  the  village  got  out  of  their  beds  and  came  to  see  what 
might  be  the  matter.  By  degrees,  however,  she  was  quieted,  and 
to-day  seems  to  be  quite  reconciled  to  her  offspring. 

Octoher  i2), — Yesterday  we  drilled  the  Ape  field.  No.  37,  with 
beans,  which  went  in  very  well,  as  the  rainfall,  although  consider- 
able, has  not  been  sufficient  to  clog  the  land.  At  night,  however, 
heavy  showers  fell,  with  the  result  that  we  cannot  sow  wheat  to- 
day as  we  intended.  About  a  fortnight  ago  a  poor  boy,  aged 
twelve,  the  son  of  a  working  man,  while  playing  in  Bungay,  was 
so  unfortunate  as  to  swallow  a  tin  *  squeaker,'  a  toy  producing  an 
abominable  noise,  which  the  lad  was  clever  at  manufacturing  out 
of  steel  ribs  taken  from  worn-out  stays.  The  doctor  and  the  father's 
employer  urged  his  parents  to  send  him  at  once  to  Norwich 
Hospital,  where  the  obstruction  could  have  been  located  with 
the  Rontgen  rays,  or  otherwise,  and  removed  by  operation.  With 
the  terrible  blindness  which  affects  so  many  persons  in  this  class  of 
life,  they  would  not  consent,  and  when  at  last  their  permission 
was  obtained  it  proved  too  late,  for  the  patient  had  developed 
peritonitis,  of  which  he  is  now  dead.  It  is  very  difficult  to  combat 
the  hatred  and  mistrust  of  hospitals  that  so  often  afflicts  such  people. 
In  this  instance  I  believe  that  it  cost  his  parents  the  life  of  a  son 
to  whom  they  were  deeply  devoted. 

October  22. — The  reader  may  remember  my  writing  of  an  aged 
relative  who  in  her  youth  assisted  at  the  planting  of  the  trees  which 
grow  about  this  house.  To-day  their  autumn  leaves  fell  upon  her 
bier  as  she  went  by  to  burial.  She  was  the  last  of  her  generation, 
and  her  death  breaks  another  link  with  the  past,  for  with  her  is 
buried  much  local  history.     Last  Sunday  I  was  talking  to  her  in 


OCTOBER  373 

her  own  drawing-room,  and  within  twenty-four  hours  she  had  passed 
away. 

I  have  sold  two  of  my  red-poll  cows,  mother  and  daughter,  to 
a  gentleman  in  the  neighbourhood  for  35/.  They  are  of  a  good 
milking  strain,  but  rather  long  in.  the  leg,  so  I  weeded  them  out. 
It  is  not  a  very  grand  price,  but  nowadays  one  can  only  keep  the 
best.  On  the  farm  and  at  Bedingham  we  have  been  drilling  wheat 
and  getting  forward  with  the  ploughing. 

I  have  been  reading  a  most  instructive  pamphlet  sent  to  me  by 
Messrs.  Garton,  of  whose  labours  I  have  already  spoken,  dealing 
with  the  production  of  new  types  of  clovers  and  grasses  by  selec- 
tion and  cross-fertilisation.  Curiously  enough,  the  results  of  their 
experiments  with  red  clover  do  not  at  all  coincide  with  those  ot 
other  experiments  carried  out  by  Darwin.  Whether  they  are  right 
or  Darwin  is  right  it  is  of  course  impossible  for  me  to  say,  but  if 
it  should  chance  that  Darwin  was  wrong  upon  this  point  the  fact 
is  suggestive. 

The  weather  is  lovely,  more  like  that  of  August  than  the  end 
of  October.  Here,  on  the  Norfolk  coast,  where  I  am  staying  for 
a  few  days  at  Kessingland,  the  autumns  are  frequently  the  finest 
part  of  the  year.  July  and  August  are  the  fashionable  months 
upon  this  shore,  but  if  I  were  a  town-dweller  I  should  prefer  those 
of  September  and  October.  This  is  very  generally  recognised 
in  these  counties,  where  people  like  to  visit  the  sea  at  the  fall  of 
the  leaf. 

Octobe?'  26. — To-day  I  was  one  of  the  party  of  guns  at  a 
pheasant  shoot  in  a  neighbouring  parish,  where  we  killed  be- 
tween four  and  five  hundred  birds,  which,  to  my  mind,  is  as 
many  as  anyone  can  want  to  see  brought  to  bag  in  six  hours, 
This  particular  shooting,  although  not  by  any  means  one  of 
the  largest,  is  certainly  one  of  the  best  managed  in  Norfolk. 
The  place  to  be  occupied  by  each  gun  at  every  beat  is  arranged 
beforehand  and  marked  with  sticks;  there  is  no  delay;  the 
t)eaters  advance  without  shouting  or  unnecessary  noise,  and  the 


374  ^  FARMER'S    YEAR 

birds  are  put  over  the  guns  in  the  best  possible  manner  of 
which  the  lie  of  the  land  permits.  The  performance  of  some  of 
the  crack  game  shots — and  there  were  one  or  two  gentlemen 
present  to-day  who  may  be  included  in  the  list — is  a  thing  to 
see.  They  seem  rarely  to  make  a  mistake,  and  however  high  the 
bird  may  pass  they  always  hit  it  well  forward,  killing  it  clean  and 
dead ;  not  waiting,  as  bunglers  like  myself  are  so  apt  to  do,  till  it  is 
almost  over  the  gun  and  sending  an  unavailing  second  barrel  after 
it  as  it  vanishes  into  space.  Battue  shooting,  as  it  is  popularly 
called,  is  a  favourite  target  for  the  scorn  of  people  who  know  very 
little  about  it,  and  who,  to  save  their  lives,  could  not  bring  down 
one  high  bird  in  twenty.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  a  difficult 
art — indeed,  like  the  poet,  the  really  fine  shot  is  born,  not  made. 
If  any  one  doubts  it,  let  him  watch  Lord  Walsingham,  standing 
away  back  behind  the  line  of  guns  and  bringing  down  pheasant 
after  pheasant  which  appear  to  be  almost  out  of  the  reach  of  shot, 
not  picking  or  choosing,  but  taking  them  one  after  another  as  they 
come  at  every  possible  or  impossible  angle. 

By  the  way,  there  is  nothing  more  disconcerting  to  the 
ordinary  sportsman  than  this  process  of  being  watched,  anent 
which  a  gentleman  once  told  me  a  most  amusing  story.  He 
was  taking  part  in  some  big  shoot  on  a  Yorkshire  estate  where  it 
was  the  habit  of  miners  to  congregate  to  watch  the  sport.  A  number 
of  these  gentry  attached  themselves  to  him,  following  him  from 
beat  to  beat  and  staring  at  him  so  hard  that  he  grew  nervous 
and  began  to  miss  freely.  At  length  the  last  and  great  stand  of 
the  day  was  reached,  when,  just  before  the  beat  began,  a  ferocious 
and  peculiarly  powerful  miner  advanced  and  whispered  hoarsely 
in  his  ear,  '  Look  'ere,  guv'ner,  you're  shooting  h'orful,  and  I've 
lost  three  bob  on  yer.  But  I've  backed  yer  double  or  quits, 
and,  by  gosh  !  if  I  don't  win  this  tim.e  /'//  knock  yer  bloamin' 
head  off: 

October  29. — All  our  wheat  is  now  in  except  one  piece  at 
Bedin^ham,  which  if  it  is  fine,  we  shall  drill  on  Monday.     W@ 


OCTOBER  375 

have  begun  lifting  the  beet  from  No.  22.  On  this  field  they  are 
small,  having  been  stunted  first  by  the  wet,  when  they  were  seed- 
lings, and  afterwards  by  the  drought,  when  they  had  formed  their 
bulbs,  but  the  quality  seems  to  be  good.  This  is  the  process  of 
beet  lifting.  Men  go  down  the  ringes  drawing  the  roots  from  the 
soil,  cutting  off  their  leafy  tops  with  a  single  swift  and  skilful 
movement,  and  throwing  the  bulbs  together  in  a  line  in  such 
fashion  that  room  is  left  for  a  cart  to  travel  without  crushing 
them.  Then  comes  the  cart,  drawn  by  one  horse,  and  two  men 
rapidly  lift  the  beet,  using  both  hands  to  the  task,  and  throw  them 
into  it,  the  horse  going  forward  and  stopping  as  required  at  a  word 
of  command.  When  this  cart  is  full  another  empty  cart  arrives 
with  two  horses,  and  the  front  horse  is  taken  off  and  hitched  on  to 
the  full  cart,  which  is  then  dragged  away  to  the  hale,  that,  in  this 
instance,  is  being  made  at  the  gate  of  the  field.  Here  the  cart  is 
tilted  up,  depositing  the  beet  at  the  end  of  the  hale,  where  they 
are  neatly  arranged  by  hand  into  a  long  pile  about  four  foot 
through  at  the  bottom  and  sloping  to  a  narrow  ridge  at  the  top. 

As  this  pile  grows,  for  fear  of  a  possible  frost  it  is  loosely  covered 
over  each  night  with  rubbish  cut  from  the  ditches  and  saved  up 
for  this  purpose.  In  the  old  extravagant  days,  when  farming  paid, 
straw  was  frequently  made  use  of,  but  now  this  is  only  turned  to, 
at  any  rate  on  my  farm,  when  there  is  no  other  material  available. 
Ultimately  the  hale  is  earthed  up,  after  having  been  ploughed 
round  to  a  depth  of  about  four  furrows  to  provide  a  supply  of  loose 
soil  with  which  to  cover  the  roots.  At  first  the  crown  of  the  ridge 
is  left  open,  but  after  a  while,  when  the  beet  are  supposed  to  have 
finished  heating,  this  is  earthed  in  also,  with  the  exception  of 
pipes  or  holes  placed  at  regular  distances,  which  are  stuffed  with 
straw  to  provide  for  the  ventilation  of  the  heap. 

To-day,  with  the  usual  formalities,  one  of  the  men  approached 
me  on  the  question  of  largesse,  intimating  that,  as  there  were  two 
extra  hands  employed  this  year,  a  slight  addition  to  the  accustomed 
sum  would  be  acceptable.  When  I  was  a  child  I  can  remember 
how  the  harvestmen  used  to  assemble  at  Bradenham  Hall  and, 


376  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

standing  In  a  semicircle  facing  the  door,  drink  beer  each  in  turn 
and  sing  this  song : 

Now  supper  is  over,  and  all  things  are  past, 

Here's  our  mistress's  good  health  in  a  full  flowing  glass ; 
She  is  a  good  mistress,  she  provides  us  good  cheer  ; 

Here's  our  mistress's  good  health,  boys — come,  drink  half  your  beer. 

She  is  a  good  mistress,  she  provides  us  good  cheer  ; 
Here's  our  mistress's  good  health,  boys — come,  drink  off  your  beer. 

Here's  health  to  our  master,  the  Lord  of  the  feast, 

God  bless  his  endeavours  and  send  him  increase. 

And  send  him  good  crops,  that  we  may  meet  another  year. 
Here's  our  master's  good  health,  boys — come,  drink  half  y owe  beer. 

God  send  him  good  crops — come,  drink  ^your  beer. 

ending  with  the  cry  of  *  Largesse  !  Largesse  !  Largesse  ! '  uttered 
by  all  in  unison. 

I  remember  that  my  mother  noted  down  the  music  of  the  air 
to  which  this  quaint  and  ancient  song  was  sung.  I  imagine  that 
it  is  not  to  be  heard  in  Norfolk  nowadays,  and  indeed  never  will 
be  heard  again. 

Talking  of  largesse  reminds  me  that  I  have  forgotten  to  say 
that  after  harvest  wages  fell  a  shilling  all  round  in  sympathy  with 
the  drop  in  the  price  of  corn. 


October  31. — To-day  we  have  been  thrashing  barley  from  the 
Ape  field.  The  return  is  not  very  good,  about  seven  coombs  to 
the  acre,  but  the  sample  seems  excellent. 

This  morning  I  was  serving  on  the  County  Grand  Jury.  At 
Norwich  the  Grand  Jurors  are  crowded  together  in  a  kind  of  bird- 
cage near  the  roof  of  the  Court,  while  the  learned  Judge  charges 
them,  or  rather  his  blotting  paper,  down  below.  I  found  from 
the  papers  afterwards,  for  it  was  impossible  to  hear  what  his  Lord- 
ship said,  that  the  subject  of  his  address  was  the  Criminal  Evidence 
Act,  of  which  he  does  not  seem  entirely  to  approve.  In  this  age 
of  change  it  is  rather  curious  that  Grand  Juries  should  still  survive 
ds  an  institution,     One  can  well  understand  that  in  past  genera^ 


OCTOBER  377 

tions  they  were  a  most  useful  bulwark  between  the  subject  and 
the  Crown,  but  now  their  functions  seem  to  be  fulfilled  by  the 
benches  of  magistrates  whose  duty  it  is  to  investigate  every  case 
before  it  is  sent  to  the  Assizes.  If  Grand  Juries  departed  into 
the  limbo  of  antiquated  but  ornamental  institutions,  taking  with 
them  the  office  of  High  Sheriff,  I  do  not  think  that  the  liberties 
of  Englishmen  would  be  imperilled.  I  believe,  however,  that  a 
case  in  which  the  magistrates  have  declined  to  commit  can  be 
reopened  before  the  Grand  Jury  by  any  party  who  considers  him- 
self aggrieved,  although  in  practice  I  never  heard  of  this  being 
done. 


378  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 


NOVEMBER 

November  i. — To-day  we  have  been  thrashing  the  barley  off 
No.  36,  which  gives  a  return  of  about  seven  coombs  the  acre. 
To-day  also  Hood  and  one  of  the  men  have  had  a  difference  of 
opinion,  with  the  result  that  the  said  man  has  given  notice  to  leave 
(I  am  glad  to  say  that  he  thought  better  of  it  later  on).  The  cause 
of  war  was  an  order  issued  by  Hood  to  pile  some  straw  from  the 
thrashing  against  a  garden  wall  over  which  this  man  was  in  the 
habit  of  climbing  when  going  to  attend  to  the  cattle,  with  the 
result  that  his  nightly  walk  is  prolonged  by  some  few  yards.  The 
grievance  seems  absolutely  trivial,  yet  it  was  urged  upon  me  with 
an  energy  which  may  be  called  fierce.  After  all,  bad  quarrels 
more  frequently  arise  from  small  than  from  big  questions ;  thus, 
•  matters  quite  as  absurd  as  this  debated  straw,  as  students  of  the 
Northern  Sagas  will  remember,  often  gave  rise  to  feuds  which  lasted 
for  generations  and  cost  whole  families  their  lives.  Of  course,  in 
the  present  instance  discipline  had  to  be  maintained,  for  without 
it  neither  farming  nor  any  other  human  enterprise  could  be  carried 
on  ;  but  it  is  hard  for  an  old  man  to  be  forced  to  bow  the  head 
to  his  junior,  especially  when  he  has  been  '  his  own  master.'  I 
confess  that  I  felt  sorry  for  him. 

This  afternoon  I  went  to  Bedingham,  and  found  Moore 
making  an  end  of  harrowing  in  the  wheat  which  has  been  drilled 
on  No.  13,  while  the  men  cleaned  out  the  water  furrows.  On 
No.  14  the  wheat  is  already  beginning  to  show  in  long  lines  of 
delicate  green ;  the  sprouting  beans  also  are  dotting  the  surface  of 
the  soil  of  No.  5.    So  the  eternal  round  of  Nature  has  begun 


NOVEMBER  379 

once  more.  New  oxen  fatten  in  the  byre,  new  corn  springs  in 
the  fertile  earth,  and  yonder  through  the  fence  new  children 
watch  the  husbandmen  at  work  as  their  forefathers  watched  them 
centuries  and  centuries  ago,  and  as  their  descendants  will  watch 
them  when  we  have  been  dead  a  thousand  years. 

The  shed  over  the  bullock  yard  is  a  great  success  although 
Moore  complains  that  one  of  the  posts  will  be  in  the  way  when 
he  is  carting  manure.  As  it  is  necessary  to  the  structure,  however, 
this  cannot  be  helped. 

Since  portions  of  this  book  began  to  appear  serially  various 
kind  correspondents  have  written  remonstrating  with  me  for 
using  galvanized  iron  as  roofing  material  upon  these  rough  sheds. 
Their  allegation  is  that  it  is  hot  in  summer  and  cold  in  winter, 
and  that  animals  sheltering  beneath  it  are  liable  to  chills.  Now, 
I  have  no  doubt  that  there  is  truth  in  all  these  statements,  and 
also  that  the  vapours  condense  upon  its  inner  surface,  causing 
drip  and  damp.  But  after  all  the  proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the 
eating,  and  as  one  of  these  sheds  has  stood  in  a  yard  here  for 
about  fourteen  years,  and  as  the  cattle  have  always  done  ex- 
ceedingly well  beneath  its  shelter,  the  iron  cannot  be  so  very 
unwholesome.  It  must  be  remembered  in  its  favour  also  that  it 
is  cheap  and  most  lasting ;  indeed,  if  kept  coated  with  a  suitable 
paint,  I  do  not  see  why  it  should  ever  wear  out.  Doubtless  the 
open  boarded  roof  sheds,  as  one  of  my  correspondents  brings  to 
my  notice,  are  in  many  ways  better,  but  are  they  as  inexpensive 
and  as  durable?  I  may  mention  that  these  sheds  of  mine,  if 
large,  are  ventilated  by  the  lifting  of  a  sheet  above  the  others 
throughout  their  length,  and  that  they  are  all  of  them  lean-to 
sheds,  so  that  the  sharp  through-draughts  which  some  critics 
mention  do  not  exist. 

The  kohl-rabi  at  Bedingham  are  a  very  fair  crop,  and  have 
stood  the  drought  marvellously.  I  believe  that  on  these  heavy 
lands  it  is  far  better  to  drill  kohl-rabi  than  swedes,  as  the  return 
is  more  certain,  and  they  will  flourish  with  half  the  amount  of 
moisture.     Also  up  till  about  Christmas-time  they  are  excellent 


380  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

for  stock.  The  white  turnips,  on  the  contrary,  have  suffered 
very  severely  from  the  drought,  but  the  beet  are  as  good  as  can 
be  expected  upon  this  land  in  such  a  season. 

November  2. — To-day  some  friends  came  over  from  Kessing- 
land  to  lunch,  and  informed  us  that  yesterday  about  midnight 
most  of  the  Coastguard  were  telegraphed  for  with  orders  to 
mobilise  at  Harwich.  When  even  Kessingland  is  robbed  of  its 
protectors  in  this  fashion  things  begin  to  look  serious,  but  for  my 
part  I  do  not  believe  that  there  will  be  any  war — no,  not  if  we 
annexed  Egypt  to-morrow,  and  for  the  simple  reason  that  all 
Europe  put  together  could  not  hold  its  own  against  us  on  the  sea. 
If  they  wanted  to  fight  us,  they  ought  to  have  done  so  ten  years 
ago,  but  even  then  I  believe  that  we  should  have  beaten  them, 
although  it  would  have  taken  longer  and  cost  more  money.  Con- 
sider how  vast  is  our  strength,  not  only  in  money,  ships,  and 
guns,  but  in  nations  of  mankind  all  the  world  over,  sworn  to  our 
service,  and  in  our  colonial  kindred,  who,  in  most  cases  at  any 
rate,  would  fight  for  us  to  the  last  ditch,  if  for  no  other  reason 
because  our  fate  must  be  their  fate.  The  spectacle  of  the 
Empire  defending  itself  against  a  combination  of  Powers,  and 
putting  out  all  its  strength  in  men  and  money,  would  be  the 
most  tremendous  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  But  although, 
doubtless,  we  should  meet  with  reverses,  for  my  part  I  should 
be  sorry  for  the  Powers,  as  I  believe  that  within  a  year  they 
would  scarcely  have  a  ship  left  between  them,  and  not  much 
British  territory  by  way  of  consolation.  One  day  the  rest  of 
the  world,  or  most  of  it,  I  suppose,  will  fling  itself  at  the  throats 
of  America  and  ourselves.  That  will  be  the  day  of  Armageddon, 
after  which  may  come  the  long  peace.  But  the  British  Empire 
and  the  United  States  will  dictate  the  terms  of  that  peace.  My 
only  fear  is  one  which  I  mentioned  on  a  previous  page,  namely, 
that  in  the  event  of  a  prolonged  war  we  might  be  driven  to  con- 
clude it  unsatisfactorily  by  the  clamour  of  the  electorate  enraged 
at  the  price  of  bread  and  other  necessaries.     Doubtless  this  is  a 


]SfOVEMBER  %%\ 

very  real  and  grave  danger,  one  more  to  be  dreaded  than  all  the 
fleets  of  France  and  Russia.  However,  these  are  only  my  private 
and  quite  unimportant  opinions. 

The  weather  to-day  is  very  windy,  with  storms  of  rain,  but  the 
men  are  going  on  with  the  storage  of  the  beet. 

November  6. — On  Thursday  last  Mr.  Simpson  came  over  to 
make  the  annual  valuation  on  these  farms  and  at  Bedingham. 
I  await  the  result  with  fear  and  trembling,  for  it  may  prove  that 
after  I  have  preached  to  others — &c.  To  be  frank,  it  always  has 
proved  so  hitherto,  therefore  a  variation  in  the  tale  would  be  a 
most  pleasant  surprise.  The  corn  is  short  this  year;  very  few 
people  have  thrashed  more  than  seven  coombs  an  acre  from  their 
barleys  in  our  neighbourhood,  and  a  large  proportion  of  this  total 
is  in  some  instances  proving  to  be  dross.  Also  there  is  the  dead 
loss  upon  those  ten  Irish  bullocks  to  be  faced,  and  the  poor  return 
from  the  root-crop,  so  that,  take  it  all  together,  we  can  scarcely 
hope  for  anything  very  encouraging. 

On  Friday  and  yesterday  we  were  shooting  the  coverts  on  the 
Ditchingham  Hall  estate.  The  weather  was  beautiful,  but  Heden- 
ham  Wood  is  still  far  too  thick  with  leaf  to  be  shot  satisfactorily : 
indeed,  it  was  quite  impossible  to  see  the  ground  game,  and  the 
pheasants  were  loth  to  rise.  We  lunched  out  of  doors  without 
cold  or  discomfort;  in  fact,  judged  by  the  green  surroundings, 
the  season  might  almost  have  been  summer,  a  delusion  that  the 
presence  of  numerous  wasps  did  not  tend  to  dispel.  The  num- 
ber of  stops  required  makes  the  shooting  of  these  large  woods 
difficult  and  rather  expensive,  but  without  their  help  the  phea- 
sants would  simply  run  from  beat  to  beat  and  never  fly  at  all. 
I  think  that  it  was  last  year  an  amusing  incident  occurred  in 
connection  with  these  stops.  After  luncheon  was  over,  and 
as  the  beaters  were  about  to  get  to  work,  a  little  boy  was  seen 
approaching,  weeping  as  bitterly  as  though  he  had  just  lost  his 
most  intimate  relation.  When  asked  what  was  the  matter,  he 
sobbed  out  in  a  squeaky  voice  ; 


362  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

*  Please,  sir,  six  of  us  little  stops  ain't  ^ad  no  beer!  Beer  and 
food,  it  may  be  explained,  have  to  be  conveyed  to  stops  at  their 
posts,  which  they  must  not  leave. 

When  I  was  alone  at  one  stand,  quite  in  the  centre  of  the 
wood,  I  saw  a  beautiful  specimen  of  the  golden-crested  wren 
picking  insects  from  a  bough  literally  within  three  feet  of  me. 
I  never  knew  before  that  these  friendly  little  birds  haunted  the 
interiors  of  large  woods. 

To-day  the  weather  is  of  the  most  perfect  stillness  and  beauty ; 
so  still,  indeed,  that  the  shed  leaves  float  downwards  softly  as 
falling  feathers.  While  we  were  at  luncheon,  suddenly,  and 
without  the  smallest  warning,  a  large  piece  fell  off  the  bough 
of  one  of  the  great  garden  elms  on  to  the  path  beneath.  Had 
anyone  been  walking  on  that  path  under  the  tree  he  would  cer- 
tainly have  been  killed.  It  is  this  trick  which  elms  have  of  shed- 
ding their  boughs  in  perfectly  still  weather  that  makes  them 
such  dangerous  timber  to  plant  near  houses.  So  far  as  my 
observation  goes,  these  limbs  come  down  in  late  spring  or  in 
autumn,  that  is  when  the  sap  is  either  rising  or  falling.  On 
examining  the  wood  of  the  bough,  I  found  that  it  was  absolutely 
rotten  and  devoid  of  all  strength  and  virtue ;  indeed,  it  seems 
marvellous  that  it  should  have  lasted  so  long. 

This  afternoon  Hood  and  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
would  be  desirable  to  make  a  change  in  our  farm  policy.  Here- 
tofore we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  fatting  all  the  progeny  of  my 
red-polls  which  we  have  not  actually  required  to  rear  as  cows.  In 
future  I  mean  to  alter  this  by  keeping  the  best  of  the  heifers 
till  I  can  sell  them  as  down-calvers,  and  the  best  of  the  male 
animals  to  be  disposed  of  as  young  bulls.  Of  course,  this  pre- 
supposes a  market  for  my  stock,  which  is  not  quite  easy  to  get  in 
face  of  the  competition  of  the  large  breeders.  Already,  however, 
there  are  inquiries ;  thus,  this  year  I  have  sold  four  things,  two 
cows  and  two  heifers,  to  people  who  wish  to  breed  from  them.  I 
cannot  see  why  I  should  not  in  time  establish  a  connection 
and  get  fair   prices,   as,    after  all,  my  cattle  are  practically  as 


NOVEMBER  383 

well  bred  as  any  other  pedigree  red-polls  in  East  Anglia,  nor  do  I 
think  that  their  stamp  is  inferior  to  that  of  such  herds  as  I 
have  seen.  Of  course,  however,  one  cannot  expect  much  of  this 
sort  of  trade  from  local  sources,  since  the  average  East  Anglian 
stock-keeper  seems  to  me  to  be  quite  careless  as  to  the  class  of 
animal  he  rears.  The  person  who  tries  to  buy  young  homebreds 
on  the  market  for  fatting  purposes  very  soon  finds  this  out,  as  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  get  them  of  sufficient  quality.  This  is  the 
more  strange  since  it  has  been  proved  over  and  over  again  that 
well-bred  animals  lay  on  flesh  much  faster  and  do  better  generally 
than  those  of  low  degree. 

November  8. — Yesterday  we  began  carting  the  beet  from 
the  top  of  the  pit  field.  No.  23,  and  it  is  now  that  we  see  the 
results  of  that  noble  mixture,  Bungay  compost.  I  believe  that 
there  is  half  as  much  weight  again  per  acre  on  this  field  as  on  any 
other  root  land  which  I  farm.  Moreover  the  roots,  although  not  of 
the  large,  coarse  variety,  have  defied  the  drought,  and  in  some 
instances,  at  any  rate,  are  perfect  specimens  of  what  high-class 
beet  should  be. 

To-day  the  morning  was  very  beautiful,  nor  during  the  whole 
year  do  I  remember  a  scene  of  more  singular  and  peaceful  charm 
than  that  which  I  witnessed  in  the  Buildings  stackyard.  Bright 
sunshine  poured  upon  the  meadows  beyond  me,  and  high 
against  the  tender  blue  of  heaven  wheeled  the  chattering  daws. 
Perched  on  the  surrounding  trees,  the  loud-voiced  rooks  croaked 
solemnly,  as  is  their  fashion  at  this  season,  while  a  grey-breasted 
lloyston  crow,  like  the  mischievous  thief  he  is,  sailed  across  the 
field  searching  the  ground  with  his  keen  eyes  in  the  hope  of  finding 
carrion  or  some  sick  and  wounded  thing  which  he  could  peck  to 
death.  At  the  sound  of  the  gate  as  I  shut  it  the  ewes  looked 
up  and  ran  forward  in  the  eager  hope  of  being  led  to  fresh 
supplies  of  food,  but  not  recognising  in  me  their  accustomed 
guide,  stopped  and  began  to  crop  the  grass  with  a  redoubled 
energy  to  make  up  for  the  moment  they  had  lost.     Hopping  on 


384  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 


^ 


the  ground  between  them  were  a  flock  of  starlings,  whose  jewelled 
-plumage  shone  in  the  sunlight.  Some  of  these  were  even  perched 
upon  the  sheep's  backs,  and,  declining  to  be  frightened  away,  clung 
to  the  wool  with  their  claws,  their  wings  outspread  to  steady 
themselves  while  the  creatures  moved.  It  was  curious  to  see 
these  industrious  birds  hunting  for  insects,  ticks  I  presume,  which 
were  hidden  in  the  fleeces  of  their  hosts.  One  tick,  I  observed,  was 
very  obdurate  and  gave  a  starling  much  trouble,  for  he  pulled  at  it 
as  a  thrush  pulls  at  a  worm  upon  the  garden  grass.  Near  to  me  also, 
poised  upon  a  whitethorn  bough  covered  with  brilliant  haws,  sat 
a  robin,  watching  everything  that  passed  with  his  beady  eye,  his 
little  head  cocked  on  one  side,  in  search,  no  doubt,  of  some  oppor- 
tunity of  profit  to  himself.  It  is  strange,  by  the  way,  now  that 
the  foliage  grows  thinner  and  winter  is  at  hand,  how  one  begins 
to  notice  the  red  breasts  of  the  robins.  In  summer  they  catch 
the  eye  but  seldom. 

Then  suddenly  this  brilliance  of  colour  and  these  many  sound- 
ing voices  of  beasts  and  birds  passed  away,  for  a  cloud  drifted 
over  the  face  of  the  sun,  and,  behold  !  all  the  landscape  grew  dead 
and  ashen,  and  all  the  birds  were  still.  The  daws  ceased  their 
chattering  and  the  rooks  croaked  no  more,  the  heavy  shape  of  the 
Royston  crow  vanished  from  sight  among  the  trees  of  the  Vineyard 
slope,  the  Robin  flew  off  with  a  disappointed  chirp,  and  even  the 
bright  haws  seemed  to  lose  their  brilliant  hues  and  to  become 
merged  in  the  sombre  tints  of  the  autumn  foliage.  Only  the 
sheep  fed  on  eagerly,  as  they  feed  day  and  night,  heedless  of  the 
season  or  the  changes  of  the  weather.  Sheep  are  practical: 
creatures,  with  no  time  to  waste  in  sentiment. 

On  the  road  to-day  I  met  an  old  fellow,  a  very  handsome  man' 
with  clear-cut  features,  whose  face  I  know  well  although  I  forget 
his  name.  He  stopped  me,  and  in  a  melancholy  quavering  voice- 
said  that  he  had  a  favour  to  ask.  The  favour  was  that  he  desired 
to  be  informed  whether  I  could  allot  him  parish  relief.  He  was- 
seventy-five,  he  told  me,  and  could  no  longer  work  as  his  strength 
had  left  him,  so  that  unless  he  could  get  relief  he  must  take 


NOVEMBER  385 

refuge  in  the  House.  I  gave  him  such  information  as  -  I  could, 
and  went  away  sorrowful.  I  have  already  commented  on  these 
cases,  and  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said  about  them. 

November  10. — Yesterday  I  was  shooting  with  a  friend  at 
Earsham,  and  spent  a  very  enjoyable  day  knocking  through  out- 
lying spinneys  and  doubling  hedgerows  for  pheasants.  We  had 
one  or  two  partridge  drives  also,  the  guns  standing  in  large  grass 
meadows,  which  in  past  times  were  a  deer-park  and  belonged  to 
the  old  Dukes  of  Norfolk.  On  a  lovely  day  such  as  this  was 
those  great  meadows  look  very  beautiful,  fringed  as  they  are  with 
tall,  uncut  hedgerows,  wherein  grow  occasional  stunted  oaks 
and  maple  trees,  now  splendid  in  their  yellow  autumn  dress.  Here, 
too,  the  fieldfares  chattered,  congratulating  themselves,  doubtless, 
upon  their  safe  arrival  from  over-seas. 

To-day  is  fine,  but  misty,  and  we  are  getting  off  the  root  from 
the  All  Hallows  field,  No.  29.  These  beet  are  of  a  longer  variety 
than  those  which  we  have  grown  elsewhere,  and,  being  easier  to 
grasp,  are  not  dealt  with  in  the  same  way.  Instead  of  pulling 
them  first  and  leaving  them  in  lines  to  be  tossed  into  the  cart,  a  man 
goes  down  the  rows,  deftly  cutting  off  the  tops  to  the  right  and 
left  with  his  sickle,  but  leaving  the  bulbs  standing  in  the  ground. 
After  him  follow  the  horses,  and  the  pullers,  dragging  the  beet  from 
the  soil  with  a  quick  and  practised  movement,  throw  them  straight 
into  the  cart.  This  process  is  harder  work,  but,  where  the  condi- 
tions make  it  practicable,  it  saves  a  good  deal  of  time. 

November  12. — Yesterday  we  were  shooting  inTindale  Wood, 
a  great  covert  of  about  120  acres,  which  even  now,  however,  is 
very  thick  with  leaf,  some  of  the  undergrowth  being  almost  as 
green  as  though  we  were  still  in  the  month  of  June.  This 
quantity  of  foliage,  even  if  one  can  see  the  creatures,  makes  hare- 
and  rabbit-shooting  rather  dangerous,  as  it  is  difficult  to  know 
when  the  beaters  are  close  at  hand.  However,  nobody  was  shot, 
perhaps  because  we  had  no  clergymen  among  our  party.     Great  as 

c  c 


386  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

is  my  respect  for  the  clergy,  although  there  are  exceptions  (I  my- 
self know  one\  I  confess  that  I  am  not  fond  of  going  out  shooting 
with  them,  since  on  these  occasions  they  are  apt  to  display  too 
active  a  trust  in  a  watching  Providence.  When  I  was  a  young 
fellow  there  lived  in  our  neighbourhood  a  retired  naval  chaplain, 
who  in  private  life  was  a  most  delightful  old  gentleman,  but  who 
when  armed  with  a  gun  became  a  perfect  terror.  On  one  occasion 
I  was  joining  a  party  of  shooters  who  were  advancing  up  a  turnip 
field,  and,  seeing  among  them  my  reverend  friend,  I  was  par- 
ticularly careful  to  show  myself  and  call  out  to  him.  When  he 
arrived  within  about  twenty  yards  of  me,  however,  a  partridge 
rose  at  his  feet  and  flew  straight  past  me,  whereon,  without  the 
slightest  hesitation,  he  sent  the  contents  first  of  one  barrel  and 
then  of  the  other  slap  into  the  fence  within  about  a  foot  of  my 
face. 

*  Mr.  B.  !  Mr.  B.  ! '  I  exclaimed  reproachfully, '  you  very  nearly 
shot  me  dead.' 

*  Oh,'  he  grunted  in  answer,  *  shouldn't  have  been  there,  you 
know ;  shouldn't  have  been  there  ! ' 

On  another  occasion  the  same  dear  old  gentleman  nearly  blew 
the  middle  out  of  one  of  my  brothers,  indeed  he  only  escaped  the 
charge  by  doubling  himself  up  with  a  wonderful  rapidity.  After 
that  experience  we  dared  not  ask  him  to  shoot  any  more.  This 
gave  him  great  offence,  as  he  believed  that  the  omission  was  due 
to  personal  reasons.  It  is  very  difficult  to  make  the  dangerous 
man  understand  what  a  thing  of  fear  he  is  to  all  his  neighbours. 

Here  is  a  further  reminiscence  of  a  parsonic  sportsman.  The 
parson  and  another  friend  entered  at  the  top  of  a  long  covert 
with  a  view  to  walking  down  it  in  line  and  shooting  rabbits, 
while  I  stood  at  the  bottom  waiting  for  pheasants.  There  were  a 
good  many  shots  fired  in  the  covert,  varied  by  occasional  shouts, 
and  at  last  my  friend  staggered  out  at  the  end  looking  very  hot  and 
flustered. 

*  You  had  some  shooting  there,'  I  said. 

*  Shooting  ? '  he  answered  in  a  fury.      *  That  infernal  parson 


NOVEMBER  387 

had  the  shooting.     He  has  been  firing  at  my  legs  all  down  the 
Grove,  and  Fve  been  jumping  the  shot  J 

Afterwards  this  reverend  gentleman  very  nearly  slew  me  also 
in  mopping  up  a  low  pheasant,  at  which  no  man  ought  to  have 
fired. 

Once,  too,  I  knew  another  clergyman  who  went  out  ferreting  with 
a  companion  and,  turning  suddenly,  aimed  his  gun  at  that  un- 
fortunate's boot  and — hit  it.  When  remonstrated  with  he  said  that 
he  thought  it  was  a  black  rabbit.  However,  he  was  only  a  curate, 
from  whom  caution  could  scarcely  be  expected. 

Next  to  the  clergy  I  think  that  naval  lieutenants  are  the 
most  dangerous,  for  they  return  fresh  from  abroad,  where  they 
have  been  accustomed  to  shoot  with  nobody  within  a  square  mile 
of  them.  But  perhaps  the  palm  ought  to  be  given  to  short- 
sighted and  peppery  old  generals  who  chance  to  be  jealous  shots. 
I  imagine,  however,  that  sportsmen  run  more  risk  from  their 
loaders  than  from  companions,  no  matter  how  careless,  who  are 
rarely  near  enough  to  shoot  them  dead.  I  shall  not  readily  forget 
one  such  experience. 

Needing  a  loader,  I  retained  for  the  next  day's  shoot  a 
gentleman  with  a  statuesque  countenance  and  a  beautiful  white 
beard,  who  informed  me  that  he  had  loaded  for  Lord  Walsingham. 
At  the  first  hot  corner,  as  my  second  gun  was  not  handed  to  me 
when  I  wanted  it,  I  looked  around,  to  perceive  the  party  who  had 
loaded  for  Lord  Walsingham  fumbling  at  the  breech  blindly  with  both 
hands,  a  loaded  cartridge  sticking  out  of  each  corner  of  his  mouth. 
I  ought  to  have  dismissed  him  then  and  there,  but  accepted  some 
explanation.  At  the  very  next  stand,  just  as  I  had  shot  a  high 
pheasant  and  was  watching  it  fall,  I  heard  an  explosion  at  my  side 
and  saw  a  charge  of  shot  strike  the  ground  in  front  of  my  feet. 
My  white-bearded  friend  had  managed  to  discharge  the  gun  which 
he  was  loading  in  such  a  fashion  that  the  shot  must  have  passed 
within  an  inch  or  so  of  my  thigh. 

For  the  rest  of  that  day  I  used  one  gun  only ;  moreover  I  took 
to  shooting  with  hammerless  guns,  which  are  much  safer.     On  the 

c  c  2 


388  A   FARMER'S   YEAR 

other  hand,  the  great  carefulness  of  a  loader  under  confusing  circum- 
stances, when  a  faulty  gun  exploded  in  his  hands,  once  saved  me 
from  a  terrible  accident.  No  story  that  I  know,  however,  of  the 
mistakes  of  loaders  can  equal  that  authentic  tale  told  to  me  by  Lord 
Walsingham,  of  how,  when  shootmg  with  three  guns,  the  trigger  of 
one  of  them  was  accidentally  pulled  while  its  loaded  muzzle  pointed 
at  the  small  of  his  back.  It  may  be  asked  how  he  survived.  He 
survived  because  out  of  all  the  hundreds  of  cartridges  he  used  that 
day  this  particular  cartridge  alone  missed  fire  ! 

We  bagged  only  one  woodcock  in  Tindale  and  saw  but  two.  In 
most  seasons  this  wood  is  a  favourite  haunt  of  these  beautiful 
birds,  and  I  have  known  as  rtlany  as  eight  or  ten  killed  in  going 
through  the  beats. 

To-day,  while  we  were  partridge  driving,  I  picked  up  on  a  field 
a  bean  seedling,  self-sown  no  doubt,  which  had  been  harrowed  out 
in  preparing  the  land  for  wheat.  It  is  very  curious  to  observe  the 
process  of  root  formation  in  the  bean.  First  the  thick  white  root 
pushes  from  the  seed,  and  then  out  of  it  and  not  from  the  bean 
itself,  indeed  about  an  eighth  of  an  inch  below  it,  starts  the  vigor- 
ous upward  growth  which  develops  into  the  plant.  Although  in 
this  particular  instance  seedling  and  root  were  each  about  four 
inches  long,  the  parent  bean  remained  quite  sound  and  unaltered 
in  flavour. 

I  noticed  that  on  the  light  lands  the  rabbits  have  done  a  good 
deal  of  mischief  this  year.  They  are  numerous  this  season,  and  I 
suppose  that  the  drought  made  them  crave  anything  with  a  juicy 
substance.  Talking  of  rabbits  reminds  me  of  an  alarming  tale  which 
a  friend  who  is  staying  here  told  me  yesterday.  A  few  weeks  ago 
his  brother,  while  riding  a  bicycle,  was  seized  with  the  most  fright- 
ful anguish  in  the  region  of  the  heart.  He  managed,  however,  to 
stagger  to  his  home  and  send  for  a  doctor.  The  seizure  proved 
to  be  the  beginning  of  an  attack  of  angina  pectoris,  so  severe  that 
it  nearly  killed  him.  When  he  was  better  he  went  with  all  pre- 
cautions to  London  to  interview  a  specialist,  who,  to  his  enormous 
relief,  for  he  thought  himself  a  doomed  man,  told  him  that  his 


NOVEMBER  389 

heart  was  perfectly  sound.  Investigations  followed,  and  he, 
discovered  that  his  attack  was  brought  on  by  eating  cold  rabbit- 
pie,  which  produced  some  peculiar  form  of  ptomaine  poisoning. 
It  appears  that  all  pies  if  unventilated  are  dangerous,  but  that  cold 
rabbit-pie  in  these  circumstances  is  apt  to  be  absolutely  deadly. 

We  have  sold  the  barley  we  thrashed  the  other  day — about  a 
hundred  coombs— at  seventeen  shillings  the  coomb.  I  am  rather 
proud  to  hear  from  the  buyer,  a  gentleman  of  experience  who 
handles  a  vast  quantity  of  grain,  that  some  of  this  barley — that 
which  was  grown  on  the  Ape  field  (No.  27) — is  in  his  opinion  the 
best  which  our  district  has  produced  this  year.  He  priced  it  at 
seventeen  and  sixpence,  but  as  the  rest  was  somewhat  inferior, 
averaged  the  lot  at  seventeen  shillings.  With  the  exception  of  a 
neighbour  who,  as  I  think  I  have  mentioned,  realised  eighteen 
shillings  or  eighteen  and  sixpence  for  a  few  coombs  which  he 
thrashed  on  the  harvest  field,  seventeen  and  sixpence  is,  I  believe, 
the  highest  price  that  has  been  obtained  in  my  neighbourhood 
this  season. 

Among  many  other  flowers  heliotrope  is  still  growing  and  bloom- 
ing with  vigour  in  the  garden.  For  the  12th  of  November  this  is, 
I  believe,  unusual. 

November  13. — To-day  a  friend,  Mr.  F.  J.  Jackson,  who  has 
just  arrived  in  this  country  from  East  Africa,  came  to  pay  me  a 
visit.  Mr.  Jackson,  who  is  a  Government  Commissioner  in  the 
Uganda  territories,  played  a  very  active  part  in  the  recent  fighting 
with  the  Soudanese  mutineers,  in  the  course  of  which  he  was 
desperately  wounded.  The  main  battle,  where  he  met  with  his 
hurt,  which  took  place  at  a  spot  called  Lubwa,  must  indeed  have 
been  one  of  the  most  fearful  struggles  that  has  happened  in  any 
part  of  our  Empire  for  many  years,  and  although  in  the  end  the 
white  men  came  off  victorious,  their  loss  in  killed  and  wounded  was 
heavy.  They  held  a  position  upon  a  slight  slope,  but  without  cover 
beyond  what  was  afforded  by  a  few  bushes  and  ant-heaps.  Here 
they  lay   supported   only  by  seventeen   Sikhs  from  an  Indian 


390  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

regiment  and  a  great  mob  of  Swahili  porters,  who  were  expected 
to  bolt  at  any  moment. 

The  Soudanese  enemy  attacked  them  in  enormously  superior 
force — they  numbered  about  three  to  one — and  with  all  proper 
military  precautions.  Advancing  up  the  slope,  they  partially  out- 
flanked the  Englishmen,  so  that  for  some  hours  the  two  forces 
seem  to  have  been  pounding  away  at  each  other  at  a  distance 
varying  from  a  hundred  to  forty  yards. 

Towards  the  beginning  of  this  book  I  mentioned  the  extra- 
ordinary insensibility  to  pain  and  shock  shown  by  animals  and 
some  races  of  men.  Here  is  a  strange  example  of  it  which 
occurred  in  this  battle  as  it  was  told  to  me  by  Mr.  Jackson.  One 
of  the  leaders  of  the  mutineers,  a  captain,  whose  name,  I  think, 
was  Suleiman  Efifendi,  made  a  rush  at  the  opening  of  the  fight 
and  got  quite  close  to  the  British  position.  Thereon  Mr.  Jackson 
and  three  other  people  fired  at  him  from  a  distance  of  about  thirty 
yards,  and  down  he  went.  As  the  bullet  which  Mr.  Jackson  had 
discharged  was  a  split  sporting  bullet  that  is  used  to  kill  game 
rapidly,  and  as  he  knew  that  he  had  hit  the  man  fair  in  the 
middle,  and  other  pressing  matters  claimed  his  attention,  he 
troubled  no  more  about  him.  Presently,  however,  his  gun-bearer 
exclaimed,  'Look  out,  Sir,  Suleiman  Effendi  is  shooting.'  He 
looked  and  saw  the  man  resting  on  one  elbow  and  drawing  a  cart- 
ridge from  his  belt  with  which  to  reload  the  rifle  he  had  just  dis- 
charged. Before  he  could  fire  again  this  unconquerable  Soudanese 
was  shot  through  the  head.  It  wall  scarcely  be  believed  that  after 
the  battle  was  over  it  was  found  that  this  man  had  four  bullets  in 
or  through  his  vitals,  any  one  of  which  must  have  caused  death 
rapidly,  as  each  of  the  wounds  was  mortal.  Y^t  he  had  kept  his 
presence  of  mind  and  courage,  and  had  found  strength  to  load  and 
fire  his  rifle. 

A  while  after  this  Mr.  Jackson  was  stmck  himself.  It  seems 
that  one  of  the  enemy,  who  was  a  good  shot,  had  crept  round  to  a 
position  a  little  behind  him  and  about  forty  yards  away,  whence 
he  is  believed  to  have  killed  young  Mr.  Fielding,  who,  bravely 


NOVEMBER  391 

but  incautiously,  exposed  himself  by  climbing  on  to  an  ant 
heap. 

Presently  Mr.  Jackson  was  aware  of  a  bullet  striking  before  his 
face  and  of  a  disturbance  in  his  clothes.  Thinking,  naturally,  that 
the  shot  had  been  discharged  from  in  front,  he  lifted  himself  a 
little  to  search  for  the  firer,  when  suddenly  he  felt  a  most  frightful 
blow  under  the  armpit,  as  though  a  very  powerful  man  had 
kicked  him  with  all  his  strength,  and  knew  that  blood  was 
pouring  from  his  mouth.  The  facts  were  that  the  first 
bullet  also  had  come  from  behind  and  passed  through  his  coat 
without  touching  his  body,  whereas  the  second,  which  was  better 
aimed,  struck  him  somewhere  below  the  right  shoulder-blade, 
flattened  on  the  ribs  and  passed  through  him,  piercing  the  lung, 
and  falling  out  into  his  shirt,  where  it  was  found.  This  bullet  he 
showed  me ;  it  came  from  a  Snider,  weighs  an  ounce  and  a 
quarter,  and  in  its  flattened  condition  is  of  the  size  of  a  two 
shilling  piece ;  indeed,  it  seems  a  mystery  how  a  man  through 
whose  lung  it  had  passed  could  be  sitting  before  me  alive  and  well. 
He  tells  me,  however,  that  in  his  own  opinion  he  owes  his  life  to  a 
curious  circumstance  which,  to  my  mind,  is  a  strange  instance  of 
the  triumph  of  the  reason  of  man  under  conditions  of  unusual 
difficulty. 

Mr.  Jackson  is  a  great  sportsman  and  has  killed  large  quantities 
of  big  game,  from  elephants  down.  Many  of  these  animals  were, 
of  course,  shot  through  the  lungs,  and  he  had  noticed  that  when 
this  happened,  death  frequently  occurred  through  the  creature 
trying  to  cough  up  its  blood  and  choking  in  the  effort.  From 
the  moment  that  he  was  struck  at  Lubwa,  he  was  convinced  that 
the  bullet  had  pierced  his  lung,  and  remembering  the  example 
furnished  by  the  game,  he  determined  not  to  cough  until  the 
severed  blood  vessels  had  been  given  a  time  to  close.  This 
resolve,  by  agonising  efforts,  he  succeeded  more  or  less  in  putting 
into  practice.  The  result  was,  that  after  lying  in  grave  danger  for 
some  days,  his  wound  healed,  and  in  about  two  months  he 
recovered. 


392  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

As  the  subject  has  been  touched  on,  a  short  account  of  the 
issue  of  the  fight  may  be  interesting.  After  hours  of  struggle 
during  which  the  Soudanese  made  five  separate  advances,  Major 
Macdonald,  the  officer  in  command,  finding  that  the  available 
ammunition  was  reduced  to  a  few  rounds  per  man,  followed  the 
example  of  the  great  Duke  at  Waterloo,  and  ordered  a  charge. 
The  enemy,  not  being  aware  of  our  desperate  straits  as  regards 
cartridges,  gave  way,  and  retired  to  the  fort,  where  they  brutally 
murdered  their  three  white  prisoners — ISIajor  Thruston  and 
Messrs.  Wilson  and  Scott.  Thus  victory  upon  that  terrible  field 
remained  with  the  white  men  and  those  of  the  indomitable  Sikhs 
who  were  left  alive.  It  is  another  recent  instance,  if  after  Chitral 
one  is  wanted,  of  what  Englishmen  can  effect  when  they  are  put 
to  proof,  whether  they  be  trained  to  arms  or  mere  undisciplined 
civilians.  When  it  is  needed,  the  innate  martial  spirit,  the 
endurance  and  determination  that  are  bred  in  their  blood,  answer 
to  the  calls  of  circumstance  and  duty,  and  they  do  what  must  be 
done  or  die  in  the  effort.  It  is,  I  think,  this  resourceful  and  un- 
quenched  spirit  which,  from  generation  to  generation,  has  made 
our  race  so  great. 

The  man  who  shot  Mr.  Jackson,  it  is  believed,  was  himself 
shot  or  very  seriously  w^ounded.  Under  the  tree  where  he  had 
taken  up  his  station  were  found  two  heaps  of  cartridge  cases — 
for  he  had  a  spare  gun  and  a  loader — and  a  pool  of  blood.  His 
body,  however,  was  not  found  ;  probably  he  was  severely  hurt,  and 
had  been  carried  away  by  his  comrades. 

To  turn  to  a  subject  which,  if  less  warlike  and  exciting,  has 
more  to  do  with  farming  interests,  Mr.  Jackson  gave  me  some  very 
interesting  details  as  to  the  working  and  ravages  of  rinderpest. 
This  dreadful  cattle  disease,  as  many  readers  will  remember,  is 
supposed  to  have  begun  in  East  Africa,  whence  it  travelled  south, 
destroying  kine,  and  even  game,  by  the  million,  and  spreading 
ruin  with  an  even  hand  among  Kaffirs  and  white  men.  The  plague 
first  struck  East  Africa  in  the  year  1890,  and  having  killed 
everything   there   was  to  kill — the  Masai  and  other  tribes  were 


NOVEMBER  393 

reduced  to  absolute  starvation  by  its  onslaught,  and  even  the 
buffalo  were  practically  exterminated — it  passed  southward.  Last 
year,  however,  unhappily  it  was  re-introduced  by  some  infected 
oxen  that  w^re  driven  from  the  coast,  and  again  killed  off  many 
thousands  of  cattle  which  had  been  bred  up  since  the  first  pest. 
Mr.  Jackson  himself,  who  was  living  in  the  Mau  district,  possessed 
a  herd  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  cows.  The  disease  smote  them, 
and,  when  it  left,  but  twenty-five  remained  alive. 

It  is  now  so  long  since  we  have  had  rinderpest  in  England  ^ 
that  a  description  of  its  symptoms  may  be  of  value.  They  are — 
at  any  rate  in  East  Africa — dry  nose,  with  loss  of  cud  and  ulcerated 
gums,  while  post-mortem  examination  reveals  inflamed  and 
ulcerated  intestines,  and  a  gall  bladder  swollen  to  the  size  of  a 
soda-water  bottle,  although  the  lungs  appear  to  be  quite  healthy. 
This  sickness  does  its  work  very  quickly.  In  the  morning 
the  animal  to  all  appearance  will  be  in  a  state  of  perfect  health 
and  grazing  as  usual,  indeed  the  stomach  is  generally  found  to  be 

*  In  the  last  century  this  or  some  similar  disease  seems  to  have  ravaged 
England  very  sorely,  as  is  testified  by  the  following  petition  which  I  have  dis- 
covered on  a  loose  printed  sheet  in  the  leaves  of  a  family  Prayer  Book  bearing 
date  1743. 

A  PRAYER  to  be  ufed  Every  Day  immediately  after  the  Prayer  \Wee  humbly  befeech 
the,  &c.]   in   the  Litany  ;  or  when   that  is  not  ufed,  after  the  Prayer,  For  the 

Clergy  and  People. 

Gracious  God,  who  in  thy  great  Bounty  to  Mankind  haft  given  them  the 
Beafts  of  the  Field  for  their  Provifion  and  Nourifhment  continue  to  us,  we 
humbly  befeech  thee,  this  Blefling,  and  fufTer  us  not  to  be  reduced  to 
Scarcity  and  Diftiefs  by  the  contagious  Diftempcr,  which  has  raged,  and  ftill  rages, 
among  the  Cattle  in  many  Parts  of  this  Kingdom.  In  this  and  all  other  thy  dif- 
penfations  towards  us,  we  fee  and  adore  the  Juftice  of  thy  Providence,  and  do  with 
forrowful  and  penitent  Hearts  Confefs,  that  our  manifold  Vices  and  Impieties  have 
defervedly  provoked  thine  Anger  and  Indignation  againft  us.  But  we  earneftly 
intreat  thee  Almighty  Father,  in  this  our  calamitious  State,  to  look  down  upon  us 
with  an  Eye  of  Pity  and  Compafliion  ;  and  if  it  be  thy  Blefled  Will,  to  forbid  the 
fpreaiing  ol  this  fore  Vifitation,  and  in  thy  good  time  to  remove  it  from  all  the 
Inhabitants  of  this  Land,  for  the  fake  of  thy  Mercies  in  Chrift  Jefus  our  only  Saviour 
and  Redeemer,     j^men 


394  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

full  of  half-digested  food.  Suddenly  it  ceases  eating,  and  stands 
awhile  with  a  hanging  head,  after  which  it  lies  down,  and  about 
five  hours  later  expires.  I  have  myself  seen  cases  of  African  horse- 
sickness  run  their  course  with  equal  swiftness,  but  I  presume  that, 
in  both  instances  the  fatal  germs  have  been  at  work  for  some  days, 
although  they  make  no  outward  show.  This,  however,  is  pure 
conjecture,  whereof  the  truth  or  falsity  could  only  be  proved  by 
a  frequent  testing  of  the  temperature  of  the  animal,  if,  indeed, 
this  precaution  would  suffice  to  establish  the  fact. 

Although  in  the  1890  epidemic,  in  addition  to  the  buffalo, 
eland,  giraffe,  lesser  kudoo,  and  wart-hog  died  in  great  numbers 
throughout  East  Africa,  curiously  enough,  so  far  as  can  be  ascer- 
tained, the  last  outbreak  does  not  seem  to  have  affected  these 
animals. 

November  16. — Yesterday  T  received  a  cheque  value  7/.  12^., 
being  the  net  amount  due  to  me  for  prizes  taken  at  the  Lothing- 
land  Agricultural  Show.  This  sum,  after  deducting  the  expenses 
to  which  we  were  put  in  sending  the  animals  for  exhibition,  I 
propose  to  divide  among  Hood,  his  wife,  Moore,  and  the  men 
and  boys  who  were  employed  in  looking  after  the  cattle. 

The  weather  is  very  damp  and  quiet,  and  we  are  now  engaged 
in  getting  off  the  mangolds  on  Baker's,  No  44. 

As  he  showed  no  signs  of  recovery,  the  old  Southdown  tiip, 
which,  as  I  think  I  have  said,  was  injured  by  a  rival  ram  some  time 
ago,  was  despatched  yesterday  to  graze  in  the  Elysian  fields.  His 
mortal  remains  are  now  being  distributed  among  the  farm 
labourers  at  a  cost  of  threepence  the  pound,  and  I  dare  say  that,  if 
boiled  long  enough,  they  will  make  very  good  soup.  Although 
his  shoulder  is  found  to  have  been  dislocated,  it  cannot  have 
troubled  the  creature  much,  or  prevented  him  from  feeding,  as  his 
condition  is  good. 

Two  pigs  have  accompanied  him  to  the  Shades.  A  pig  is  the 
only  animal  which  looks  more  attractive  dead  than  alive  ;  then,  for 
the  first  tianein  his  guzzling  career,  he  is  white,  cool  and  clean. 


NOVEMBER  395 

At  Bedingham,  to-day,  I  found  that  the  beet  have  all  been 
lifted  and  haled.  The  men  are  carting  flashings  from  the  hedge- 
rows into  heaps  for  burning,  as  it  is  useless  to  keep  them  till 
another  year  to  serve  as  stack-bottoms,  since  by  that  time 
they  would  have  rotted.  Moore  is  ploughing  up  the  root  land, 
the  two  young  horses,  which  have  '  come  in '  very  satisfactorily, 
working  half  a  day  apiece.  This  is  as  much  as  they  ought  to  do 
at  present^ 

November  18. — To-day  I  went  to  Norwich  to  see  the  Agricul- 
tural Show.  I  cannot  pretend  that  an  agricultural  show  held 
under  a  roof  is  a  particularly  pleasant  place  to  linger  in ;  there 
are  too  many  smells  and  too  much  noise.  The  red-poll  classes 
were  strong,  the  fat  steers  being,  some  of  them,  magnificent 
animals.  As  was  to  be  expected,  the  executors  of  the  lamented 
Mr.  Colman  took  a  large  proportion  of  the  prizes.  Out  of  their 
great  herds  they  are  able  to  pick  and  choose  ;  moreover,  in 
such  establishments  the  rearing  of  cattle  for  show  is  almost 
a  business.  From  birth  till  they  appear  upon  the  bench,  every 
delicacy  which  they  can  be  persuaded  to  eat  is  crammed  down 
the  throats  of  these  pampered  animals,  together  with  liberal 
draughts  of  new  milk.  Hood  tells  me  that  when  he  was  in 
the  service  of  a  gentleman  in  the  Shires,  they  reared  a  short- 
horn steer  that  took  the  first  prizes  at  some  of  the  largest  shows 
in  England.  In  addition  to  all  his  other  nutriment,  this  creature 
was  accustomed  to  swallow  a  bucket  of  new  milk  every  day, 
with  admirable  results  upon  his  condition.  ^Such  treatment 
means  a  large  expenditure,  with  a  very  problematical  return  in 
the  way  of  advertisement ;  indeed,  as  I  believe  I  have  written 
elsewhere,  I  doubt  whether  it  pays  the  small  man  to  compete  at 
these  great  shows,  however  good  may  be  his  stock. 

At  first  sight  to-day  an  observer  in  the  Show  might  have 
thought,  as  I  did,  that  the  condition  of  the  various  cattle  exhausted 
the  possibilities  of  fat,  until  a  visit  to  the  pig  department  proved 
him  to  be  utterly  mistaken.     What  monsters  are  these  !    And  how 


396  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

in  the  name  of  Barley-meal  do  they  manage  even  to  move  under 
such  a  weight  of  adipose  deposit  ?  Perhaps  they  do  not  move. 
Perhaps  they  are  carried  ;  anyhow,  the  operation  had  tired  tliem, 
and  they  were  all  asleep.  By  the  way,  it  is  a  fact  worth  recording 
that  the  ancients  could  boast  an  excellent  breed  of  pig.  This  I 
know,  because  I  have  an  Etruscan  vase  in  my  possession  on  which 
is  painted  a  picture  of  what  I  take  to  be  the  hog  that,  on  some 
occasion  before  the  founding  of  Rome,  secured  the  cup,' or  rather 
the  bowl,  at  a  local  show  in  Etruria,  a  supposition  that  seems 
to  be  borne  out  by  the  garlands  of  oak  leaves  and  acorns  with 
which  he  is  encircled,  and  the  rosettes  that  are  painted  above  his 
noble  snout.  At  least,  if  he  did  not  score  the  prize,  he  ought  to 
have  done  so,  for  really  he  is  an  admirably  proportioned  animal, 
in  magnificent  condition  ;  short  and  thick,  with  a  regular  Berkshire 
head,  a  tail  like  a  corkscrew,  and  pure  white  in  colour. 

In  one  of  the  galleries  of  the  Hall  the  Queensland  Govern- 
ment has  a  stall,  set  there  doubtless  to  attract  the  intending 
emigrant.  I  must  say  that  it  attracted  me.  Such  heads  of 
Indian  corn,  such  samples  of  wheat  and  barley — the  latter  a  little 
pale  coloured  perhaps.  The  gentleman  in  charge  of  the  stall  gave 
me  a  bundle  of  literature,  which  I  perused  all  the  way  home,  with 
the  result  that  before  I  reached  Ditchingham  I  felt  inclined  to 
book  a  passage  for  Queensland  by  the  next  steamer.  A  country 
which  is  twice  the  size  of  the  German  Empire,  with  a  nice  warm 
climate,  and  a  death-rate  of  only  i2'io  per  thousand ;  where  any- 
thing will  grow,  from  a  pine-apple  to  a  cabbage ;  where  horses,  sheep, 
and  cattle  flourish ;  where,  in  short,  naught  is  lacking  except  the 
many  and  varied  plagues  of  Africa — what  could  a  man  want 
more  ?  Moreover,  there  the  land  is  dirt  cheap  and  arranged  in 
lots  to  suit  all  purses ;  and — best  of  everything — the  British  flag 
flies  over  it,  with  nobody  to  question  its  supremacy. 

What  says  the  little  book  which  was  presented  to  me  ?  '  Foreign 
competition,  high  rents,  bad  seasons,  &c.,  &c.,  render  the  cultiva- 
vator's  life  here  an  unending  effort  to  keep  his  head  above  water. 
Why  not  close  the  conflict,  and  go  to  a  land  where  labour  and 


NOVEMBER  397 

money  properly  invested  are  sure  to  return  good  interest?' 
Many  will  be  inclined  to  echo  the  question.     Why  not,  indeed  ? 

But  I  hold  no  brief  for  Queensland,  of  which  I  know  little. 
Doubtless  it  has  its  drawbacks,  like  other  places.  Within  the 
giant  circle  of  the  British  Empire  are  several  such  favoured  lands, 
whose  fertility  and  wholesomeness  literally  cry  aloud  to  man  to  take 
his  profit  from  them. 

What  I  do  hold  a  brief  for,  what  I  do  venture  to  preach  to 
almost  every  class,  and  especially  the  gentle-bred,  is  emigration. 
Why  should  people  continue  to  be  cooped  up  in  this  narrow 
country,  living  generally  upon  insufficient  means,  when  yonder 
their  feet  might  be  set  in  so  large  a  room  ?  Why  do  they  not 
journey  to  where  families  can  be  brought  into  the  world  without 
the  terror  that  if  this  happens  they  will  starve  or  drag  their  parents 
down  to  the  dirt ;  to  where  the  individual  may  assert  himself  and 
find  room  to  develop  his  own  character,  instead  of  being  crushed  in 
the  mould  of  custom  till,  outwardly  at  any  rate,  he  is  as  like  his 
fellows  as  one  brick  is  like  to  the  others  in  a  wall  ? 

Here,  too,  unless  he  be  endowed  by  nature  with  great  ability, 
abnormal  powers  of  work,  and  an  iron  constitution,  or,  failing  these, 
with  pre-eminent  advantages  of  birth  or  wealth,  the  human  item  has 
about  as  much  chance  of  rising  as  the  brick  at  the  bottom  has  of 
climbing  to  the  top  of  the  wall,  for  the  weight  of  the  thousands 
above  keep  him  down,  and  the  conventions  of  a  crowded  and  ancient 
country  tie  his  hands  and  fetter  his  thought.  But  in  those  new 
homes  across  the  seas  it  is  different,  for  there  he  can  draw  nearer 
to  nature,  and,  though  the  advantages  of  civilisation  remain  un- 
forfeited,  to  the  happier  conditions  of  the  simple  uncomplicated 
man.  There,  if  he  be  of  gentle  birth,  his  sons  may  go  to  work 
among  the  cattle  without  losing  caste,  instead  of  being  called 
upon  to  begin  where  their  father  left  off,  or  pay  the  price  in  social 
damage;  there  his  daughters  will  marry  and  help  to  build  up 
some  great  empire  of  the  future,  instead  of  dying  single  in  a  land 
where  women  are  too  many  and  m.arriage  is  becoming  more  and 
more  a  luxury  for  the  rich.     Decidedly  emigration,  not  to  our  over- 


398  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

peopled  towns,  but  to  the  Antipodes,  has  its  advantages,  and  if  I 
were  young  again  I  would  practice  what  I  preach. 

When  I  had  satisfied  myself  with  a  vision  of  fat  beasts,  I  went 
on  to  the  Chrysanthemum  Show  at  St.  Andrew's  Hall.  I  suppose 
that  it  is  my  bad  taste,  but  although  I  am  a  great  lover  of  flowers, 
and  grow  them  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  I  cannot  say  that  I  am 
attracted  by  prize  chrysanthemums.  They  seem  like  our  society — 
too  highly  cultivated,  too  much  developed  from  the  primitive 
type,  and,  with  all  their  infinite  variety,  to  me  they  still  suggest  a 
curious  sense  of  sameness. 

As  one  may  as  well  do  a  thing  thoroughly  while  about  it, 
after  the  chrysanthemums  I  marched  to  the  Poultry  Show.  It 
was  my  first  visit  to  one  of  these  exhibitions,  and,  unless  for  some 
very  special  purpose,  I  incline  to  the  opinion  that  it  will  be  my 
last.  Here  the  odours  are  very  pungent,  while  the  noise  is  absolutely 
deafening,  for  every  cock  in  the  place  is  fiercely  set  upon  crowing 
down  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  other  cocks.  One  of  these  birds 
showed  extraordinary  intelligence.  There  he  stood  in  his  box 
with  his  head  laid  sideways  on  its  floor.  I  thought  that  he  must 
be  very  sick,  and  watched  him  ;  but  presently  he  lifted  himself  up 
and  crowed  most  furiously.  Clearly  the  creature  was  like  the  deaf 
adder  that  stoppeth  her  ears,  only  he  stopped  his  ears  to  make  him- 
self deaf,  being,  like  myself,  overpowered  by  the  execrable  noise. 

I  never  knew  before  that  cocks  grew  to  such  a  size — indeed, 
some  of  the  birds  at  the  Norwich  show  reminded  me  of  young 
ostriches,  fowls  with  which  I  am  acquainted,  for  I  have  farmed 
them.  Once,  with  a  friend,  I  rode  to  a  distant  stead  in  the  Trans- 
vaal, where  we  invested  our  little  all — or  most  of  it — in  ostriches, 
of  which  a  shrewd  and  progressive  Boer  wished  to  be  rid.  There 
were  six  or  eight  of  them,  and  they  cost  about  three  hundred 
pounds,  for  at  that  time  the  ostrich  market  was  tight — in  the 
Transvaal.  For  the  same  sum,  or  a  little  more,  I  have  no  doubt 
that  in  those  days  of  cheap  land  we  might  have  bought  the 
whole  farm.  Had  we  done  so,  I  suppose,  if  a  plethora  of  wealth 
had  left  me  still  alive,  that  instead  of  writing  books  in  the  country 


NOVEMBER  399 

I  should  now  be  entertaining  foreign  Royalties  in  a  marble 
palace  in  Park  Lane,  for  that  farm  lies  in  the  centre  of  the  Rand 
district,  and  I  have  heard  that  the  best  reefs  run  through  it. 

And  yet,  although  my  vision  failed  me  in  this  instance — why 
are  there  not  gold  dowsers  as  well  as  water  dowsers'^ — I  must 
have  been  a  youth  of  some  foresight.  Here  I  quote  a  passage 
written  by  me  in  1876  when  I  was  a  lad  of  twenty.  For  a  first 
effort  in  prophecy  it  has  proved  fairly  accurate,  especially  as  I  can- 
not have  had  much  to  go  on,  for  in  those  days  few  people  looked 
upon  the  bankrupt  and  unvisited  South  African  Republic  as  a 
country  of  any  value  i 

*  It  is  very  difficult  to  convey  an  impression  of  the  intense 
dreariness  and  monotony  of  the  great  Transvaal  wastes,  "  where 
wilds  immeasurably  spread  seem  lengthening  as  we  go."  Day 
after  day  the  traveller  passes  over  vast  spaces  of  rolling  veld 
stretching  away  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  without  a  tree,  a 
house,  or  any  sign  of  man,  save  here  and  there  a  half-beaten 
waggon  track.  And  yet  those  wastes,  now  so  dismal  and  desolate, 
are  at  no  distant  date  destined  to  support  and  enrich  a  large  popu- 
lation -J  for  underneath  their  surface  lie  all  minerals  in  abundance, 
and  when  the  coal  of  England  and  of  Europe  is  exhausted,  there 
is  sufficient  stored  up  here  to  stock  the  world.  Those  plains,  too, 
which  for  centuries  have  lain  idle  and  unproductive,  will  before 
long  supply  the  greatest  corn  markets  with  grain;  for,  save  in 
some  places  where  water  is  scarce,  the  virgin  soil  is  rich  beyond 
comparison.  Yes,  before  us  lies  the  country  of  the  practical  future, 
of  the  days  when  the  rich  man  will  have  his  estate  in  Switzerland 
to  gratify  his  eyes,  and  his  estate  in  the  Transvaal  to  fill  his 
pockets.  This  vast  land  will  one  day  be  the  garden  of  Africa^  the 
land  of  ge^ns  and  gold ^  of  oil  and  corn,  of  steam-J) loughs  and  rail- 
ways.    It  has  an  assured  and  a  magnifice?tt future.^ 

Ostriches  are  disappointing  birds.  Ours  steadily  declined  to 
lay  eggs,  but  by  way  of  compensation  their  kicking  powers  were 


400  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

perfectly  unrivalled,  indeed  I  have  seen  one  of  them  cause  a  strong 
man  to  perform  cart-wheels  like  a  street  arab.  Also  they  were 
subject  to  unreasonable  panics,  in  the  course  of  which  they 
charged  fences  and  broke  their  expensive  necks.  Once,  under 
pressure  of  necessity,  we  performed  tracheotomy  on  an  ostrich — • 
a  terrible  and  exhausting  operation.  The  creature  had  swallowed 
a  bone  about  eight  inches  long,  which  became  fixed  across  his 
gullet.  As  it  would  move  neither  up  nor  down,  with  the  help  of 
four  picked  Kaffirs  and  a  razor  we  held  him  and  hewed  out  the 
obstruction.  Strange  to  say,  he  recovered  from  this  delicate 
surgical  feat,  but  by  an  evil  fate  a  few  months  later  he  swallowed 
another  bone,  which  stuck  in  the  same  place.  •  This  we  were 
unable  to  remove,  and  that  ostrich  died. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  sights  which  I  ever  saw  is  that  of  a 
flock  of  these  birds  in  their  wild  state  floating  away  across  the  vast 
plains  till  their  snowy  plumes  were  lost  in  the  dim  blue  of  the 
sky-line.  This  and  the  spectacle  of  the  Transvaal  veld  black  with 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  trekking  game  are  things  that  I  am 
glad  to  have  beheld,  especially  as  the  latter  of  them  will  never  be 
seen  again.  And  so  farewell  to  ostriches,  which  to  me  furnish  no 
happy  memories. 

On  the  farm  we  are  still  getting  ofl*  beet,  in  much  colder 
weather,  for  the  wind  has  turned  to  the  east. 

November  19. — The  beet  on  Baker's,  No.  44,  have  proved  a 
better  crop  than  might  have  been  expected,  when  the  poor  state 
of  the  land  and  the  rather  thin  plant  are  taken  into  consideration. 
From  the  seven  acres  of  them  we  have  carted  about  one  hundred 
and  forty  loads,  which  must  represent  not  far  short  of  twenty  tons 
to  the  acre,  or,  to  be  on  the  safe  side,  let  us  say  eighteen  tons — a 
not  unsatisfactory  return. 

We  have  begun  digging  the  carrots— for  the  soil  is  too  tight 
to  allow  of  their  being  pulled — which  have  grown  upon  the 
Thwaite  field.  There  are  an  acre  and  three  quarters  of  them, 
with  some  parsnips  mixed  in,  and  I  reckon^  the  weight  at  about 


NOVEMBER  401 

thirteen  tons.  A  good  crop  should  run  to  ten  tons  the  acre,  so, 
if  this  estimate  is  correct,  we  are  five  or  six  tons  short  of  what  we 
might  have  hoped  to  get,  which  shortage  is  due  mainly  to  the 
ravages  of  the  accursed  rabbit,  that  persistently  ate  out  the 
crowns  of  the  young  plants.  Also  the  summer  has  been  too  dry 
for  the  successful  growth  of  carrots,  which  show  the  result  of  a 
lack  of  rain  in  the  fanginess  of  the  root,  caused  by  their  starting 
into  fresh  growth  when  moisture  fell  after  a  long  period  of  drought. 
For  the  same  reason  a  good  many  of  them  have  run  to  seed.  A 
carrot  cannot  grow  top  and  bottom  at  the  same  time,  therefore 
when  they  go  to  seed  there  is  little  or  no  root,  all  the  virtue  of 
the  plant  being  absorbed  in  the  reproductive  process.  Even  if 
left  to  stand,  this  seed  would  come  to  nothing.  To  secure  it  in  a 
fertile  condition,  the  carrots  should  be  lifted  and  haled  in  autumn, 
for,  if  left  in  the  ground,  a  severe  frost  will  perish  them.  In  the 
spring  they  must  be  taken  from  the  hale  and  replanted  in  good  soil, 
when  they  Vv^ill  produce  a  plentiful  crop  of  seed. 

The  tops  of  the  carrots  are  being  cut  off  and  left  upon  the 
ground,  on  which,  as  it  was  not  manured  last  year,  we  propose  to 
fold  the  sheep,  that  devour  them  greedily,  together  with  the  swede 
heads  from  the  top  portion  of  this  field,  which  will  be  carted  down 
to  provide  them  with  a  little  extra  sustenance. 

To-day  we  are  delivering  the  barley  which  we  sold  to  the 
maltsters. 

The  last  stalks  of  our  green  maize  have  been  eaten.  It  has 
furnished  us  with  a  very  valuable  bite  of  succulent  food,  and  that 
it  should  have  lasted  so  long  in  good  condition  is  a  striking  testi- 
mony to  the  openness  of  the  season,  for  mealies  fall  easy  victims 
to  the  attack  of  frost. 

November  21. — To-day  is  dull  with  a  drizzling  rain,  not  heavy 
enough,  however,  to  prevent  us  from  drilHng  wheat  on  the  little 
bit  of  land  which  has  been  ploughed  after  the  maize  was  cleared. 
We  are  carting  grit  also  gathered  from  the  highway  to  spread  about 
upon  the  surface  of  the  seven-acre  pasture.  No.  10.     This  stuff 

D  D 


402  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

seems  to  be  a  perquisite  of  the  road-scraping  men,  at  any  rate  when 
it  is  collected  in  the  streets  of  the  village,  as  we  buy  it  from  them 
at  eighteenpence  the  load.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  laid  up 
against  the  banks  it  belongs  to  the  owner  of  the  adjacent  soil. 
Road-grit,  containing  as  it  does  all  manner  of  finely  pulverised 
refuse,  is  very  valuable  as  a  dressing  for  pasture  land.  Also  it  can 
be  put  to  good  advantage  by  using  it  in  the  holes  where  young 
apple-trees  are  being  planted,  especially  if  the  soil  beneath  is  clay, 
as  the  roots  find  it  very  '  kind '  to  work  in. 

The  score  or  so  of  lambs  which,  with  the  help  of  a  little  cake, 
have  been  fatting  on  this  pasture.  No.  lo,  are  now  all  sold  to  the 
butcher,  as  we  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  cross  with 
the  Southdown  produces  an  animal  too  small  to  breed  from.  The 
largest  of  them  fetched  thirty-eight  shillings,  and  the  smaller, 
which  are  pure  Southdown,  thirty  shillings.  It  is  not  a  very  high 
price,  but  on  the  whole  we  are  well  rid  of  them. 

November  24. — Yesterday  and  the  day  before  the  weather  was 
a  good  deal  colder,  but  this  morning  it  is  rough  and  mild.  Two 
ploughs  are  going  on  the  farm,  while  the  carrot-lifting  and  the 
earthing  up  of  the  beet  still  continue. 

At  the  Bench  to-day  we  had  our  first  experience  of  the  new 
Criminal  Evidence  Act,  of  the  provisions  of  which  the  defendant 
elected  to  avail  himself  in  each  case,  with  the  result  that  one  and 
all  they  proceeded  to  give  themselves  gracefully  away.  I  have  seen 
this  Act  a  good  deal  criticised,  but  my  own  opinion,  for  what  it  is 
worth,  is  that  it  will  prove  a  very  useful  measure,  and  ensure  the 
conviction  of  a  great  many  guilty  people  who  would  otherwise  have 
baen  acquitted,  and  the  escape,  or,  at  any  rate,  the  complete  clear- 
ing of  the  characters,  of  some  innocent  people  who  might  otherwise 
have  been  left  under  a  cloud  of  suspicion.  Few  accused  persons, 
at  least  among  the  classes  with  which  magistrates  have  to  deal, 
will;  I  believe,  be  able  to  resist  the  temptation  of  going  into  the 
box  and  giving  evidence  on  oath,  however  guilty  they  may  know 
themselves  to  be.     Once  there  the  result  is  sure,  for  my  experience 


NOVEMBER  403 

is  that  such  persons  break  down  at  once  under  a  cross-examina- 
tion conducted  by  a  trained  intellect.  The  two  objections  to  the  Act 
seem  to  me  to  be  that  it  will  cause  an  enormous  amount  of  extra  per- 
jury, and  that  if  a  defendant  elects  not  to  go  into  the  box,  having 
had  the  opportunity  of  so  doing,  whatever  judge  or  counsel  may 
urge,  the  mind  of  the  jury  will  very  likely  be  prejudiced  against 
him. 

As  to  the  first  of  these  two  points,  it  may  be  answered  that 
people  who  perjure  themselves,  even  on  their  own  behalf,  are 
liable  to  prosecution  and  penal  servitude.  But  will  such  prosecu- 
tions be  instituted,  and,  if  they  are  instituted,  will  any  jury  be 
found  to  convict  a  man  who,  on  his  oath  or  out  of  it,  has  told  lies 
to  save  his  liberty  ?  I  am  convinced  that  they  would  acquit  him 
on  the  general  principle  that  it  is  only  to  be  expected  that  a  rat 
in  a  corner  will  try  to  escape  by  any  means  it  can  discover. 

The  view  of  Mr.  Justice  Hawkins,  whose  opinion  is  entitled, 
I  suppose,  to  as  much  or  more  weight  than  that  of  anybody  else 
in  England,  seems  to  be  that  the  prisoner  charged  before  the 
magistrates  with  an  indictable  offence  ought  not  to  go  into  the 
box  in  their  court,  insomuch  as  they  are  not  trying  him,  but  merely 
investigating  the  charge  to  see  whether  there  is  a  case  against  him 
strong  enough  to  be  sent  for  trial.  This  is  all  very  well,  though 
some  great  authorities  take  a  much  wider  view  of  the  duties  of 
magistrates — but,  under  the  words  of  the  Act,  if  a  defendant  insists 
upon  giving  evidence  at  petty  sessions,  or  anywhere  else,  I  do  not 
quite  see  how  he  is  to  be  prevented.  Then,  of  course,  arises  the 
question  as  to  whether  or  no  his  cross-examination  should  be 
allowed.  However,  I  suppose  that  all  these  points  will  be  settled 
sooner  or  later  by  the  wisdom  of  those  above. 

One  man  amused  me  to-day.  He  was  before  us  for  an  indict- 
able offence,  and  having  elected  to  be  dealt  with  under  the 
Summary  Jurisdiction  Act,  expressed  a  wish  to  give  evidence. 

*  Well,'  I  asked  him,  when  he  had  been  sworn,  *  what  have  you 
to  say  ? ' 

'  If  you  please,  sir,'  he  replied  gravely.  ^  I  stole  thefoivV 

D  D  2 


404  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

November  25. — The  mild  and  open  weather  continues,  and  we 
have  three  ploughs  at  work,  two  of  them  on  No.  22  and  one  on 
Baker's,  No.  43.  After  breakfast,  I  walked  down  to  the  All 
Hallows  field.  No.  37,  half  of  which,  it  may  be  remembered,  was 
under  layer  hay,  while  the  other  half  bore  a  crop  of  pease.  Some 
mustard  seed  was  harrowed  in  on  to  the  pea  stubble,  but  when  I 
returned  from  Scotland  it  looked  to  me  as  though  it  would  not 
furnish  a  day's  bite  for  the  sheep.  Still,  it  lived  through  the 
drought,  and  now,  under  the  influence  of  the  recent  rain,  has  thrown 
up  quite  a  fair  crop,  on  which  the  ewes  are  being  penned  at  night. 
In  the  daytime  both  they  and  the  cows  run  on  the  hay  stubble 
alongside  the  mustard,  where  there  is  still  a  good  deal  of  excellent 
feed,  although  two  crops  have  been  cut  from  it.  It  is  most  amus- 
ing to  watch  these  animals,  which  one  and  all  naturally  wish  to 
get  to  the  mustard,  with  the  result  that  the  boy  in  charge  has  an 
exceedingly  lively  time.  First  the  cows  make  for  it  with  quiet 
determination.  He  rushes  to  turn  them,  whereon  the  sheep  see 
their  opportunity  and  slip  in  at  the  other  end  of  the  line.  I  think 
that  by  nightfall  this  boy  must  be  very  tired,  for  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  restrain  a  flock  of  experienced  ewes  which  see  some- 
thing tasty  in  front  of  them.  Indeed,  ours  had  to  be  removed 
from  the  Pithole  field,  on  to  which  they  were  turned  to  clean  up 
the  beet  tops,  as,  notwithstanding  the  herd's  efforts,  they  broke 
continually  into  the  swedes  and  white  turnips,  doing  them  a  good 
deal  of  damage. 

It  was  funny  also  to  note  the  behaviour  of  a  little  terrier  dog 
named  Di  that  accompanied  me.  Di  is  terrified  of  sheep,  which 
chase  her  (she  will  kill  lambs  if  she  gets  the  chance),  but  in  order 
to  avoid  showing  her  fear  by  beating  a  humble  retreat,  she  bolted 
to  the  fence  and  began  to  hunt  an  imaginary  rabbit  all  the  way 
round  it,  being  careful  to  keep  on  the  further  side  until  she  reached 
the  road  again.  For  cunning  humbug  few  animals  can  beat  a  dog, 
which  is  a  creature  that  hates  to  be  laughed  at.  Talking  of  Di 
reminds  me  of  her  evilly  disposed  companion  Dan,  that,  it  may 
be  remembered,  was  given  to  a  friend  after  the  wicked  little  beast 


NOVEMBER  405 

had  tried  to  kill  a  ewe  in  Flixton  Park.  Recently  I  have  seen 
this  friend  and  heard  the  sequel.  In  London  Dan  behaved  well, 
piously  even.  Then  he  went  on  a  visit  to  the  country  for  the 
benefit  of  his  health.  That  same  evening  he  was  reported  missing, 
Next  morning  he  reappeared,  accompanied  by  a  furious  farmer 
and — a  large  dead  sheep.  Now  unhonoured  and  unwept  Dan 
hunts  the  shades  of  sheep  along  the  fields  celestial.  Moral — but 
it  can  be  guessed. 

On  my  way  home  I  noticed  that,  owing  to  the  indifferent 
stacking,  the  large  wheat  rick  in  All  Hallows  yard  has  sunk  so 
much  that  it  is  on  the  point  of  falling  over.  Indeed,  the  poles  by 
which  it  is  supported  have  pushed  up  the  roof  in  bulges,  so  great 
is  the  weight  upon  them. 

I  hear  to-day  that  the  man  whom  we  hired  at  Bedingham  is 
leaving  again,  having  found  a  place  as  groom  and  gardener  to  a 
clergyman.  I  am  glad  for  his  sake,  since  the  work  is  easier,  and  the 
pay — probably — better ;  but  where  we  are  to  find  another  I  know 
not,  as  the  young  men  in  this  year  of  grace  absolutely  decline  to 
labour  on  the  land. 

November  29. — Saturday  and  Monday  were  very  wet  and 
wretched,  but  for  my  part  I  am  glad  to  see  some  rain.  To-day  I 
have  been  out  shooting  in  a  charming  natural  covert  among  the 
marshes,  by  which  I  mean  a  wood  that  does  not  seem  to  hive 
been  planted  by  man.  The  holly  trees  in  it  look  especially  beauti- 
ful, and  are  covered  with  brilliant  red  berries. 

We  have  bought  six  little  steers  from  a  neighbouring  farmer, 
aged  from  ten  months  to  a  year  old,  at  the  price  of  4/.  105-.  apiece. 
This  strain  of  animals  has  some  of  our  own  blood  in  it,  and  there- 
fore I  prefer  them  to  promiscuous  home-breds.  They  have  gone 
to  Bedingham  for  the  winter.  To-day  also  I  handed  over  the 
7/.  125.  that  we  won  in  prizes — or  rather  5/.  2s.  of  it,  for  the  rest 
went  in  expenses — to  be  divided  up  according  to  scale. 

As  I  was  walking  from  one  stand  to  another  while  out  shooting 
this  afternoon  I  came  across  a  mole  which,  on  hearing  us — for  I 


4o6  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

believe  that  these  creatures  cannot  see — instantly  began  to  burrow 
into  the  bank.  In  from  two  to  three  seconds  its  fat  black  body  had 
nearly  vanished,  for  it  seemed  to  disappear  into  the  soil  much  as  a 
hot  iron  sinks  into  snow.  To  pull  it  out  needed  considerable  force, 
and  I  fear  gave  the  poor  little  thing  a  great  fright,  for,  after  this 
experience,  it  just  covered  itself  with  loose  soil  and  began  to  squeak 
loudly.  I  asked  the  beaters  not  to  kill  it,  so  I  hope  that  by  now 
it  has  recovered  its  nerve. 

My  host  told  me  a  good  story.  At  a  big  shoot  a  guest  of  his 
was  given  an  old  keeper  as  a  loader — a  man  of  somewhat  caustic 
wit.  The  guest  was  not  shooting  well  that  day,  and  although  he 
fired  freely  very  little  happened.  After  a  hot  corner  the  groom  with 
the  game-cart  asked  the  disgusted  loader  if  he  wanted  any  more 
cartridges. 

*  Keertridges,'  he  was  heard  to  reply,  '  no  bor  ;  take  'em  away. 
Keertridges  ain't  no  use  to  us ! '  Half  the  joke,  however,  lies  in 
the  Norfolk  intonation,  which  it  is  impossible  to  reproduce,  rising 
crescendo  till  the  last  word  is  uttered  in  a  modified  scream. 


407 


DECEMBER 

December  3. — December  has  opened  with  rough  weather,  and 
yesterday  the  wind  rose  steadily,  till  at  nightfall  it  blew  a  gale, 
before  which,  at  sunset,  gorgeous-coloured  clouds  went  driving 
past  like  the  chariots  of  a  heavenly  host. 

To-day  I  went  to  Norwich  to  attend  a  meeting  of  the  Norfolk 
Chamber  of  Agriculture,  of  which  I  am  a  member.  The  subject 
under  discussion  was  that  of  *  Better  methods  of  remunerating 
skilled  agricultural  labour,'  which  was  introduced  in  an  interesting 
speech  by  Mr.  Lee  Warner,  and  dwelt  upon  in  its  various  aspects 
by  other  gentlemen. 

If  I  may  criticise,  however,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  debate 
turned  too  much  upon  such  matters  as  technical  instruction, 
benefit  societies,  ploughing  matches,  &c.  Piece-work  also  was 
discussed,  some  of  the  speakers  being  in  favour  of  and  some  against 
the  system.  As  regards  ploughing  and  thatching  competitions,  my 
experience  has  been  that  it  is  not  easy  to  persuade  labourers — who 
are  a  suspicious  folk — to  enter  their  names  for  them.  I  remember 
a  good  many  years  ago  that,  with  some  difficulty,  one  of  my  own 
men  was  induced  to  compete  for  a  prize  in  stack-building.  It 
never  even  entered  his  mind  that  there  was  a  possibility  of  fair 
dealing  about  the  matter. 

'  I  doubt  they'll  give  that  to  their  own  people ' — *  they '  being  the 
the  judges— he  said  to  me,  shaking  his  head;  and,  as  it  happened, 
by  bad  luck,  I  believe  that  they  did.  My  friend  did  not  seem  in 
the  least  surprised,  but  I  do  not  think  that  he  will  enter  for  any 
more  competitions.     Kissing,  in  the  opinion  of  the  agricultural 


4o8  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

labourer,  goes  very  much  by  favour.  Moreover,  as  a  class,  they 
are  sensitive,  and  dislike  the  idea  of  failing.  '  But  how  dreadful 
it  would  be  if  I  didn't  win,'  said  a  certain  good  lady  to  me  the 
other  day  when  I  urged  her  to  sho\V  her  butter.  Fortunately  she 
did  win. 

Before  the  meeting  broke  up  I  ventured  to  point  out  that  in 
my  view  these  questions  went  much  deeper  than  had  been 
suggested,  being  rooted  indeed  in  the  prevailing  agricultural 
depression.  Surely  the  matter  of  skilled  labour  is  economic,  and 
it  is  leaving  the  land,  not  for  lack  of  technical  instruction,  benefit 
societies  with  money  prizes,  or  flower-shows,  but  because  the 
land  can  no  longer  compete  against  the  towns  and  pay  the  able- 
bodied  and  active  labourer  a  sufficient  wage  to  tempt  him  to  stay 
at  home.  It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the  lot  of  the  agricul- 
tural labourer  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  lot  of  agriculture.  There 
used  to  be  plenty  of  labour  upon  the  land  when  the  land  was 
prosperous ;  now  that  its  prosperity  has  departed,  there  is  little, 
and  the  inference  is  plain.  The  young  men  are  not  learning  the 
trade ;  they  are  drifting  to  the  cities  or  elsewhere,  leaving  the  old 
or  the  unfit  to  do  the  work,  and  ultimately  to  increase  the  rates. 

That  this  is  no  fancy  can  be  proved  by  any  one  who  takes  the 
trouble  to  walk  over  my  own  or  other  farms  and  see  how  large  is 
the  proportion  of  elderly  men  employed  upon  them.  The  young 
fellow  who  can  plough,  and  thatch,  and  milk,  as  his  father  did,  is 
indeed  a  rara  avis  to-day.  This  cry  of  the  want  of  labour  is  to  be 
heard  in  every  direction — one  can  hardly  open  a  country  news- 
paper without  seeing  some  allusion  to  its  scarceness.  Some  try  to 
explain  this  as  consequent  on  the  lack  of  cottages  in  certain 
districts.  Cottages  do  not  pay  to  build,  and  there  may  be  a  basis 
of  fact  in  this  argument ;  but  it  is  not  the  kernel  of  the  question, 
for  even  where  the  dwellings  exist  the  men  are  wanting,  Thus : 
a  cottage  of  mine  with  a  good  garden  has  been  standing  vacant 
«for  a  year  because  I  cannot  find  a  labouring  tenant.  Indeed,  I  am 
told  that  in  one  small  village  a  few  miles  away  no  less  than  forty 
cottages  are  unoccupied. 


DECEMBER  409 

Mr.  Philip  Bagenal,  the  Local  Government  Board  inspector  for 
these  counties,  has  very  kindly  sent  me  his  *  Report  on  Pauperism 
and  Distress  for  1898,'  in  which  he  points  out  that  the  Census 
returns  show  that  between  the  years  187 1  and  1891  one-tenth  of 
the  agricultural  labourers  of  Norfolk  had  left  the  land  ;  adding : 
'There  is  too  much  reason  to  believe  that  since  1891  the  rate  of 
decrease  has  been  accelerated.'  This  rate,  by  the  way,  is  slightly 
higher  in  Suffolk  than  in  Norfolk. 

Among  the  reasons  given  by  Mr.  Bagenal  for  this  emigration 
are  :  the  inability  of  farmers  to  employ  as  many  labourers  as 
formerly ;  the  conversion  of  arable  land  into  pasture ;  and  the 
desire  of  the  young  men  to  lead  a  less  monotonous  life.  The 
results  he  sums  up  in  very  few  words  :  '  A  constant  drain  of  the 
best  class  of  wage  earners  is  thus  going  on.  The  old  and  infirm 
are  left,  and  these  necessarily  come  on  the  rates.' 

What  is  to  be  the  end  of  it  ?  Mr.  Bagenal  says  in  his  report 
that  we  appear  to  have  touched  bottom  in  the  matter  of  the  con- 
version of  arable  into  pasture.  But  if  the  exodus  is  to  continue, 
I  can  see  no  other  way  of  meeting  it  than  by  the  multiplication 
of  machines  and  the  laying  down  of  grass,  which  absorbs  less 
labour  than  ploughland.  Of  course,  however,  this  matter  of  the 
inconvenience  ensuing  to  those  employed  in  agricultural  pursuits 
is  but  one  side  of  the  question,  which  involves  other  and  even 
greater  interests  of  a  national  character,  and  affecting  the  well- 
being  of  the  whole  race.  '  The  inhabitants  of  the  village  ceased,' 
is  a  sad  record  for  any  generation  to  write  down,  but  the  results 
may  prove  still  sadder  to  its  descendants.^ 

While  waiting  in  Norwich  for  my  train  I  took  a  walk  to  the 
cattle  market.  The  sight  of  all  those  poor  beasts  crowded  in 
their  pens  brought  the  memory  of  my  ten  departed  Irish  bullocks 
back  to  my  mind  with  a  force  which  was  quite  painful.  Indeed,  in 
one  or  two  lots  I  could  almost  imagine  that  I  saw  the  brutes 
before  me — gaunt,  slab-sided,   and   hungry-eyed.     I   think  that 

*  For  a  fuller  discussion  of  this  question  see  Appendix  I. 


410  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

these  unfortunate  animals — especially  those  of  them  that  are 
brought  from  overseas — must  suffer  more  than  most  people 
imagine  ;  at  any  rate,  I  am  sure  that  I  saw  suffering  written  large 
on  some  of  them  to-day.  But  they  cannot  complain,  and  if  they 
try  to  resist,  the  stout  ash  stick  of  the  drover  is  waiting  for  them. 
Indeed,  the  brutality  of  these  men,  or  some  of  them,  especially 
when  a  little  in  liquor,  is  shocking.  I  saw  them  again  and  again 
striking  the  cattle  in  their  charge  without  the  slightest  necessity  and 
generally  about  the  head,  I  suppose  because  experience  teaches 
them  that  there  animals  are  most  sensitive  to  pain.  Indeed,  in 
one  case  a  passer-by  appealed  to  me  to  put  a  stop  to  the  thing,  but 
as  there  was  no  policeman  in  sight,  what  could  I  do  ?  I  presume 
that  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  has 
local  inspectors.  Where  were  they?  But  at  best  it  might  be 
difficult  to  secure  conviction  in  such  a  case,  as  the  offenders 
would  swear  that  it  was  necessary  to  thrash  the  beasts  in  order  to 
keep  them  in  their  places. 

A  week  or  two  ago,  through  the  kindness  of  a  friend,  I  had  the 
opportunity  of  tendering  for,  and  very  probably  of  obtaining,  a 
large  contract  to  supply  hay,  straw,  roots,  &c.,  to  an  Institution  in 
London  to  the  value  perhaps  of  about  i,ooo/.  a  year.  The  prices 
that  the  Institution  was  willing  to  pay  seemed  to  be  quite 
satisfactory,  the  only  question  being  whether  or  no  the  cost  of 
carriage  would  absorb  any  profit  which  it  might  be  possible  to 
make.  I  have  now  made  inquiries  to  find  that  this  is  absolutely 
prohibitive.  To  deliver  hay  in  London  from  Ditchingham — that 
is  at  Liverpool  Street,  not  reckoning  the  expenses  of  cartage- 
involves  a  charge  of  iQi".  2d.  a  ton,  whereas  straw  figures  out  at 
no  less  than  i/.  2s.  9^.,  although  roots  can  be  carried  at  6s.  6d.  if 
a  truckful  is  sent.  So  there  is  an  end  of  that  scheme,  which  is 
a  pity,  since,  if  the  carriage  had  been  cheaper,  many  others 
besides  myself  would  have  benefited  by  it,  as  I  should  have 
bought  up  considerable  quantities  of  produce  in  the  neighbour- 
hood. A  gentleman  to  whom  I  was  talking  at  the  Norwich  Club 
to-day  told  me  that,  in  his  capacity  of  trustee  or  executor  to  a  large 


DECEMBER  411 

East  Norfolk  estate,  he  had  an  opportunity  of  selling  a  great 
quantity  of  wind-felled  timber  to  be  used  for  mining  purposes  in 
the  North  of  England.  The  carriage  which  he  was  prepared  to 
pay  upon  this  timber  amounted,  I  understand,  to  no  less  a  sum 
than  6,000/.,  but  the  railway  companies  concerned  declined  to 
transport  it  at  that  price,  with  the  result  that  the  business  fell 
through,  and  the  tiees  are  now  being  disposed  of  locally  for  what 
they  will  fetch  as  firewood  and  fencing. 

I  may  add  that  in  my  own  case  I  made  inquiries  also  as  to 
delivery  by  water-carriage,  but  this  too  proved  impracticable. 

This  question  of  transport  is  one  of  the  gravest  that  the 
agriculturist  has  to  face,  for  here  he  must  compete  against  the 
preferential  rates  granted  to  foreign  produce  by  the  railways.  I  will 
quote  a  single  instance.  The  Rev.  J.  Valpy,  of  Elsing,  in  this 
county,  writing  to  The  Times,  states  that  one  of  his  parishioners 
receives  a  hundred  apples  delivered  by  rail  from  California,  U.S., 
at  a  cost  of  3^.  But  when  the  same  person  sent  a  hundred  apples 
to  be  delivered  in  Leicester,  by  the  Midland  or  Great  Northern 
Railway,  he  was  obliged  to  pay  2s.  lod. — that  is  to  say,  twopence 
less  than  the  charge  for  the  carriage  of  exactly  the  same  quantity 
of  fruit  from  California.  This  example  speaks  for  itself.  At  the 
same  time  it  )vould  be  unjust  not  to  acknowledge  with  gratitude 
the  offers  which  are  now  being  made  by  the  Great  Eastern  Railway 
to  convey  small  parcels  of  farm  and  garden  produce  to  London  at 
greatly  reduced  rates. 

December  7. — For  the  last  few  days  we  have  been  ploughing 
and  fence  trimming  on  the  farm,  in  weather  that,  for  the  time  of  year, 
is  extraordinarily  fine  and  mild.  It  appears,  indeed,  according  to  a 
letter  to  The  Times  from  Mr.  G.  J.  Simmons,  that  the  nights  of 
the  5th  and  6th  of  this  month  were  the  warmest  recorded  in  the 
notes  of  meteorological  observations  made  during  forty  years.  On 
the  6th  the  reading  reached  63-9,  which  is  nearly  twenty  degrees 
above  the  average  for  a  December  night.  This  temperature  was 
milder  than  that   of  any  night  during  last  May,  while   in  July 


412  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 


\ 


there  were  twenty-one  days  when  the  night  readings  were  less. 
Wonderful  are  the  ways  of  the  British  climate  ! 

To-day  the  rain  is  falling  in  a  steady  sheet,  which  is  unlucky, 
as  Royal  Duke  and  two  other  of  my  fat  animals  have  gone  to  the 
Harleston  auction,  and  beasts  never  look  or  handle  so  well  if  they 
are  draggled  with  wet.  My  consolation  is  that  all  the  other 
creatures  on  show  will  suffer  from  the  same  cause.  Now  is  the 
time  that  we  find  the  advantage  of  roofed-in  yards.  It  is  a 
pleasure  to  see  the  stock  standing  warm  and  dry  beneath  them, 
and  the  litter  unwashed  by  a  drop  of  water. 

In  such  weather  work  is  slack  upon  the  farm,  but  one  man  is 
employed  in  white-washing  the  cow-sheds,  another  in  cleaning 
harness,  and  so  forth.  To-day,  for  the  first  time  since  early  spring, 
the  ditch  leading  into  the  garden  pond  is  running  with  water. 

December  8. — The  weather  is  now  fine  again,  so  that  we  are 
able  to  resume  our  ploughing.  For  the  last  three  days  I  have 
been  plunged  in  a  controversy  on  that  thorniest  of  all  subjects — 
Free  Trade.  It  began  by  my  yielding  to  one  of  the  most  unwise 
of  human  impulses,  and  correcting  a  statement  about  myself  in 
a  newspaper.  Last  Saturday,  at  the  meeting  of  the  Norfolk 
Chamber  of  Agriculture,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  in  the  course  of 
my  few  remarks— according  to  the  reporters — I  said  that  agri- 
culturists should  urge  upon  Governments,  or  those  responsible,  the 
necessity  of  doing  something  to  help  the  general  state  of  agriculture, 
for  in  helping  agriculture  they  would  also  help  the  general  state 
of  the  labourer.  Thereupon  a  leading  local  paper  of  advanced  views 
devoted  an  article  to  me,  in  which  it  was  stated  that  '  by  doing 
something '  I  meant  the  introduction  of  protective  measures.  In 
actual  fact  I  meant  nothing  of  the  sort.  Protection  was  not  in 
my  mind  ;  indeed,  at  the  moment,  speaking  in  a  very  cold  room  in 
a  hurry  and  entirely  without  premeditation  to  a  meeting  that  was 
eager  to  escape  to  lunch,  I  had  not  even  formulated  to  myself 
what  this  'something'  ought  to  be,  although  generally  I  was 
alluding  to  the  equalisation  of  rates  on  real  and  personal  property 


DECEMBER  4^3 

and  to  the  necessity  of  really  effective  measures  for  the  protection 
of  farmers  against  fraud. 

Under  these  circumstances  I  corrected  the  local  paper,  which 
thereupon  in  another  article  replied  that  in  1895,  when  I  was 
standing  for  Parliament,  I  urged  the  imposition  of  a  tax  upon  im- 
ported flour  and  barley.  This  is  true  :  in  common  with  many  other 
people  I  did  urge  the  absolute  justice  of  such  a  tax,  which,  if  looked 
into,  however,  will  be  found  to  mean  a  very  infinitesimal  measure 
of  protection.  Barley  is  not  used  as  a  food  for  men,  and  I  think 
that  I  was  careful  to  exclude  from  my  proposal  crushed  barley 
destined  to  be  devoured  by  pigs.  Further,  when  that  grain  was 
much  dearer  than  at  present  I  believe  that  the  price  of  beer  was 
practically  the  same  as  it  is  to-day.  Therefore  the  drop  in  the 
price  of  barley  has  not  benefited  the  consumers  of  malt  liquors, 
but  has  found  its  way  into  the  pockets  of  brewers  and  middlemen. 
The  duty  on  imported  flour  would  only  mean  that  the  corn  must 
come  whole  into  this  country,  there  to  be  ground  by  our  millers. 
I  have  never  urged  that  any  duty  should  be  charged  upon  wheat 
or  upon  sea-borne  meat,  which,  under  present  circumstances,  in 
the  opinion  of  many  might  be  against  the  interest  of  the  community 
as  a  whole.     At  any  rate  it  would  be  contrary  to  its  wishes. 

One  of  the  dangers  of  a  newspaper  correspondence  lies  in 
its  seductiveness.  The  controversialist,  seeing  things  stated  about 
himself  to  which  he  objects,  is  led  on  to  reply  and  explain,  where- 
by, in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  he  makes  matters  worse  than  they 
were  before.  I  replied  and  I  explained — amongst  other  things 
that,  although  I  still  held  the  same  opinions  as  to  the  justice  of  an 
import  tax  upon  foreign  barley  and  flour,  the  whole  question  had, 
in  my  view,  become  purely  academical  on  account  of  the  strong 
opposition  of  the  people  of  this  country,  and  that  I  did  not  think 
it  likely  that  I  should  again  publicly  advocate  the  imposition  of  a 
duty  upon  foreign  foodstuffs.  I  added,  however,  that  I  did  hold  it 
desirable  that  under  certain  circumstances  a  bounty  should  be  given 
to  growers  of  wheat.     But  here  are  the  exact  words  : 

•  I  do,  however,  think  it  desirable  that  whenever  wheat  falls 


414  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

below  a  certain  unprofitable  price — say  30^.  a  quarter — a  moderate 
bounty  should  be  paid  from  the  Imperial  Exchequer  to  those  who 
continue  to  grow  it.  Probably  it  is  futile  to  expect  that  such  a 
measure  will  be  adopted  except  under  the  stern  compulsion  of 
conditions  which  we  cannot  foresee,  and  perhaps  this  also  may  be 
held  to  savour  of  Protection.  Still,  it  will  be  admitted  that  in  view 
of  national  and  other  contingencies,  it  is  not  to  the  interest  of  the 
country  that  wheat  should  go  out  of  cultivation,  or  indeed  that 
the  present  area  under  that  crop  should  be  further  contracted. 
Nor  is  it  to  the  interest  of  the  country  that  the  classes  who  were 
wont  to  be  employed  in  its  production  at  a  profit,  and  who  for 
generations  have  been  the  backbone  of  England,  should,  for  the 
lack  of  a  reasonable  wage,  which  under  present  circumstances  it 
is  impossible  to  pay  them,  be  driven  from  the  land  that  bore  them 
and  herded  together  in  the  towns.' 

This  letter  has  produced  a  third  article,  wherein  I  am  held  up 
as  one  reprobate,  and  told  that '  a  noble  scorn  of  consequence ' 
is  preferable  by  far  to  'a  spirit  of  stealthy  opportunism.' 

Well,  I  am  a  person  acquainted  with  criticism ;  indeed,  there 
are  few  epithets,  angry  or  disparaging,  that  have  not  at  one  time 
or  another  landed  upon  my  appointed  head,  but  never  before  has 
it  been  suggested,  as  I  understand  this  writer  to  suggest,  that  I 
am  a  stealthy  opportunist.  From  no  such  failing  as  this,  O 
Scribe,  have  I  suffered  chiefly  in  the  past,  but  rather  from  a  ten- 
dency to  enter  on  rash  ventures  and  crusades  and  to  indulge  in ' 
speech  undiplomatically  plain.  Surely,  too,  as  a  matter  of  argu- 
ment, my  position  could  better  have  been  defined  as  stealthily 
opportunistic  if,  hiding  my  real  views,  for  this  reason  or  for  that, 
I  had  pretended  to  change  them.  But  I  make  no  such  pretence ; 
I  say  only  that  it  is  useless  to  continue  to  urge  publicly — by  which 
I  mean  in  platform  speeches,  and  especially  in  addresses  to  rural 
audiences — what  the  electorate  rejects  ;  and  further,  that  the 
advocacy  of  any  measure  of  protection,  however  just  it  may  seem 
to  some,  is  so  misinterpreted  and  exaggerated,  that  it  is  perhaps 
best  to  leave  the  thing  alone.     For  instance,  during  my  election 


DECEMBER  415 

campaign  in  1895,  it  was  persistently  put  about  in  the  constituency 
that  I  supported  the  imposition  of  a  tax  upon  wheat  and  meat. 
This,  as  I  have  said,  I  had  never  even  thought  of  doing. 

My  letter,  I  am  further  informed,  *  is  mainly  interesting  as  an 
index  to  the  true  inwardness  of  the  Conservative  mind  on  subjects 
of  economic  policy.'  I  do  not  quite  see  what  the  purely  private 
views  of  a  purely  private  person  who  is  not  engaged  in  standing 
for  Parliament  have  to  do  either  with  the  outwardness  or  the 
inwardness  of  the  Conservative  Mind.  Probably,  if  it  were  asked, 
the  Conservative  Mind  would  decline  to  be  identified  with  my 
personal  opinions,  which  are,  to  be  frank,  of  a  somewhat  indepen- 
dent order. 

But  this  is  not  all  of  it,  for  my  suggestions  as  to  the  advan- 
tages of  a  bounty  are  next  discussed.  It  is  pointed  out  that  a 
bounty  '  designed  to  prevent  the  cost  of  home-produced  wheat 
falling  below  305-.  a  quarter,  is  a  tax  on  the  consumer  to  the 
extent  of  the  difference  between  305-.  and  the  price  at  which 
wheat  can  be  produced  by  other  peoples.' 

Quite  so,  and  what  then  ?  Nobody  can  say  that  305-.  a 
quarter  is  a  high  price  to  pay  for  wheat ;  indeed,  in  this  country 
it  cannot  be  grown  to  profit  at  that  figure.  If  a  thing  cannot  be 
grown  at  a  profit,  sooner  or  later  it  ceases  to  be  grown  at  all,  and 
the  real  issue  is  whether  or  no  it  is  desirable  that  wheat  should 
be  cultivated  in  England  in  the  future. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  any  certainty  of  view  upon  the  subject — 
mine  is  only  a  pious  opinion.  It  may  be  wise  that  we  should 
learn  to  depend  entirely  upon  foreign  supplies  of  corn,  though 
many  declare  that  this  would  be  the  reverse  of  wisdom.  But  at 
least  there  are  two  sides  to  the  question,  and  a  time  might  come 
when,  under  the  pressure  of  foreign  complications,  home-grown 
grain  would  be  wanted.  The  issue  therefore  arises  whether — 
if  this  supposition  be  correct — it  is  not  better  to  violate  the 
strict  letter  of  a  doubtful  dogma  than  to  expose  the  country  to 
what  may  be  a  national  risk  ?  Lastly,  to  come  to  the  root, 
out  of  which  all  this  controversy  grew— how  about  the  labourers 


4i6  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

who  live  upon  the  land  ?  Are  they  or  are  they  not  to  receive  a 
decent  wage  ?  At  present  their  pay  is  inadequate,  and  therefore 
they  are  leaving  the  land,  neither,  as  I  believe,  to  their  own 
ultimate  benefit,  nor  to  the  good  of  our  country.  Is  this  to  go 
on  or  is  it  not  to  go  on?  And  if  not,  how  is  it  to  be  prevented 
without  the  aid  of  measures  which  will  restore  the  soil  to  its  pro- 
sperity ?  That  is  the  problem  to  which  wiser  men  than  I  am 
must  find  an  answer,  and  within  the  next  generation. 

What  I  have  never  been  able  to  understand  is  why  those 
who,  owing,  let  us  suppose,  to  some  mental  twist,  are  unable 
to  accept  as  wise  or  advisable  all  the  strict  and  far-reaching  con- 
sequences of  the  Cobden  doctrines  should  be  spoken  of  almost 
as  if  they  were  evil-doers?  Why  indeed  others,  possibly  more 
enlightened,  should  wag  the  head  and  point  the  finger  at  them 
even  as  though  they  v/ere  persons  who,  conceiving,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  that  they  had  a  message  to  deliver  and  a  duty  to 
perform,  have  dared  to  write  a  novel  with  a  purpose  ?  Scarcely 
without  exception,  these  doctrines  in  their  entirety  are  to-day 
repudiated,  or  at  any  rate  not  acted  upon,  by  the  other  civilised 
peoples  of  the  world,  those  of  our  own  colonies  included,  most  of 
which  communities  are  not  without  intelligence,  and  may  indeed 
be  supposed  to  be  competent,  like  ourselves,  to  form  an  opinion 
as  to  what  is  or  is  not  prudent  and  to  their  advantage. 
Also  they  are  questioned  by  a  great  many  thinking  men  in 
this  country,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  articles  which  now  often 
appear  in  some  of  the  leading  papers.  And  yet,  if  an  indivi- 
dual ventures  openly  to  express  the  belief  that  a  tax  upon  im- 
ported barley  and  foreign-ground  flour  is  just,  or  that  it  would 
be  desirable  to  give  a  bounty  to  home-grown  corn,  behold  what 
happens  to  him.  Perhaps,  however,  the  local  paper  does  not 
really  think  that  I  am  so  very  wicked,  or  wish  to  throw  strange 
lights  upon  my  views  ;  indeed,  I  venture  to  believe,  if  all  the  truth 
were  known,  that  we  part  good  friends. 

Hood  tells  me  that  the  weather  at  Harleston  yesterday  was 
fearful,  but,  wet  or  fine,  the  show  and  sale  had  to  be  held.     All 


DECEMBER  4^7 

my  three  beasts  were  disposed  of.  Royal  Duke  fetched  26/., 
turning  the  scale  at  93  st.  12  lb.  live  weight,  which  is  estimated 
to  produce  about  ^^y  stone  dead  weight.  The  young  bullock 
and  the  heifer,  aged  about  eighteen  months,  sold  respectively 
for  17/.  55-.  and  17/.  Although  he  took  first  prize  at  the 
Lothingland  Show,  Royal  Duke  has  never  quite  come  up  to 
expectations,  as  throughout  his — for  a  bullock — considerable 
career  of  two  years  ten  months,  he  has  proved  himself  but  a 
second-class  '  doer.'  Ultimately  he  was  bought  by  our  local 
butcher  for  the  same  sum  that  the  said  butcher  offered  before 
he  left  my  yard,  and  as  his  journey  to  Harleston  and  the  sale 
expenses  will  come  to  at  least  i/.  is.^  it  is  clear  that  we  have 
lost  money  by  our  enterprise.  Still,  it  is  a  good  thing  occasion- 
ally to  sell  stock  at  a  public  auction,  as  it  advertises  the  fact 
of  the  existence  of  a  herd.  For  instance,  the  two  young 
things  went  away  to  Colchester,  and  those  who  bought  them 
may  come  back  for  more. 

December  9. — The  weather  to-day  remains  mild  and  windy. 
On  the  farm  there  is  little  or  nothing  of  interest  to  record. 
The  ploughs  move  from  place  to  place,  and  throughout  the  grey 
December  days  steal  up  and  down  the  dripping  fields.  Beyond 
the  daily  routine  of  stock-feeding,  root-cutting,  &c.,  that  is 
almost  all.  It  is  the  dead  of  winter,  in  which  few  things  grow, 
and  yet  I  suppose  that  vegetation  does  increase  whenever  the 
temperature  is  above  42  degrees,  for  almost  imperceptibly  the 
tender  wheat  shoots  lengthen,  and  the  young  bean  plants  look 
sturdier  at  each  visit ;  also  the  green  leaves  of  weeds  spring  in  the 
shelter  of  the  hedges. 

To-day  a  widow  visited  me  to  enlist  my  interest,  such  as  it  is, 
in  the  Royal  Agricultural  Benevolent  Institution,  to  which  ad- 
mirable charity  I  am  a  small  subscriber,  and  asked  me  to  sign  her 
certificate  of  recommendation.  For  thirty-four  years  her  husband 
farmed  no  less  than  680  acres  of  land  in  this  neighbourhood,  for 
which  he  paid  an  annual  rent  of  930/     Now  she  is  penniless.     The 

E  E 


^4 1 8  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

causes  to  which  her  present  distress  are  attributed,  as  they  appear 
upon  the  paper,  are  '  loss  of  capital,  bad  seasons,  etc'  As  in  all 
such  cases,  and  their  name  is  legion  in  the  Eastern  Counties,  that 
'etc'  covers  a  great  deal.  It  includes,  for  instance,  the  practical 
ruin  of  the  agricultural  interest.  Is  it  a  permanent  ruin,  I 
wonder,  or  will  it  pass  like  other  sorrows  ? 

To-day,  too,  I  visited  a  man  who  has  now  been  bedridden  for 
about  five  years.  He  was  a  soldier  who  served  in  Egypt  and  took 
part  in  some  of  the  desert  battles — a  broken  Arab  spearhead  is  one 
of  the  ornaments  of  the  tidy  room  where  he  lies  from  year  to  year 
with  no  sight  but  the  topmost  boughs  of  an  apple  tree  to  cheer  him. 
In  spring  he  sees  that  tree  grow  green  with  leaf  and  pink  with 
blossom,  in  summer  and  autumn  the  fruits  swell  and  ripen  before 
his  eyes,  then  comes  winter  and  the  boughs  are  bare  again.  This 
is  all  he  finds  to  look  at,  all  that  remains  to  tell  him  of  the  passing 
of  the  seasons. 

This  man  was  born  at  Bedingham  and  knows  the  Moat  Farm 
w^ll.  Oddly  enough,  I  found  his  wife  and  himself  reading  this 
diary  in  the  magazine  in  which  it  is  being  published,  and  he 
talked  to  me  with  interest  of  the  condition  of  the  Moat  Farm  as 
he  remembered  it,  he  who,  as  I  suppose,  will  never  see  the  face 
of  earth  again,  although  his  life  may  be  prolonged  for  years.  He 
suffered  from  fever  in  Egypt,  and  a  while  after  he  left  the  Service 
paralysis  seized  his  legs,  affecting  all  one  side  of  him  including 
his  left  eyelid.  At  first  it  was  thought  that  he  would  die,  but  he 
did  not  die,  on  the  contrary  he  has  grown  somewhat  stronger. 
What  strikes  me  most  about  him  is  the  gentle  patience  with 
which  he  endures  his  terrible  affliction.  I  congratulated  him  upon 
the  improvement  in  his  health  since  my  last  visit,  to  which  he 
replied  that  this  did  not  lessen  the  burden  *  of  those  who  had  to 
bear  with  him.'  Many  of  us  who  worry  and  repine  at  our  ail- 
ments and  troubles  might  surely  learn  a  lesson  from  this  quiet 
sufferer.  But  I  think  that  patience  and  a  kind  of  divine  courage 
often  characterise  those  who  are  thus  smitten.  A  while  ago  I 
was  interested  in  a  paralytic  of  the  name  of  Flintoff,  a  native  of 


DECEMBER  419 

London,  who  passed  the  last  years  of  his  life  in  the  Ditchingham 
Hospital,  and  whose  story  would  be  worth  the  telling  if  I  had  the 
space  to  write  down  human  documents.  One  day  a  message  was 
sent  to  me  to  say  that  he  was  dying,  and  I  hurried  to  the  place  to 
bid  him  farewell.     He  received  me  with  a  beaming  smile. 

*  Thank  God,  dear  friend,'  he  gasped  in  a  broken  whisper  so 
low  that  I  could  scarcely  catch  his  words,  *at  last  I  am  "shuffling 
off— this  mortal  coil."' 

He  was  a  man  of  considerable  reading,  and  enjoyed  quoting 
Shakespeare  to  the  end. 

With  reference  to  the  controversy  of  which  I  wrote  yesterday, 
I  am  interested  to  see  in  the  paper  where  it  has  been  carried  on 
a  letter  from  a  gentleman  who  signs  himself  '  An  Old  Radical.' 
The  Old  Radical,  after  stating  that  he  is  strongly  opposed  to  my- 
self in  politics — I  should  like  to  hear  his  definition  of  my  politics 
— adds  that  '  in  this  instance,  if  he  will  allow  so  unworthy  a  subject 
to  join  hands  with  him,  I  will.'  He  then  says  that  he  has  passed  the 
allotted  span  of  life,  that  he  was  born  a  farmer's  son,  and  became 
a  London  tradesman,  and  has  been  the  witness  of  a  great  deal  of 
misery,  with  the  result  that  '  the  very  thought  of  Protection  makes 
me  shudder.'  He  adds  that  after  forty- five  years  of  absence  he 
returned  to  his  native  country.  Now  I  will  let  him  speak  for 
himself : 

'  What  did  I  find  ?  Well,  I  looked  about  for  my  old  schoolboy 
friends,  sons  of  men  of  good  position  in  those  days.  I  found  most 
of  them  dead,  and,  if  not  dead,  certainly  "  dead-broke."  Several 
of  them  are  paupers.  I  seek  for  the  cause.  I  find  it  all  put  down 
to  Free  Trade.  I  say  that  we  cannot  afford  to  have  our  wheat 
lands  thrown  out  of  cultivation  Then  don't  kill  the  farmer,  but 
give  him  a  bounty.  Let  the  loaf  be  cheap,  and  if  the  foreigner 
wants  to  swamp  us  with  his  corn,  let  him.  Let's  have  a  cheap 
loaf,  and  no  reasonable  taxpayer  will  object  to  help  the  farmer.' 

A  bounty  on  wheat  when  it  falls  below  305.  a  quarter  may  be 
an  economical  iniquity — possibly  it  is,  and  certainly  it  is  not  a 
remedy  of  which,  personally,  I  am  enamoured — but  at  least,  even 


420  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

if  its  arguments  are  slightly  illogical,  a  letter  like  this,  coming  from 
such  a  source,  is  a  curious  sign  of  the  times. 

December  lo. — Standing  on  the  new  pastures  at  Bedingham  this 
afternoon  just  before  the  fall  of  night,  the  scene  looked  very  desolate, 
wet  as  it  was  with  rain  and  torn  with  wind.  Above  the  flat,  bare 
fields  hung  a  singularly  lurid  heaven,  which  the  background  of 
black  woodlands  almost  seemed  to  touch,  while  low  down,  sinking 
to  the  horizon  between  two  lids  of  angry  cloud,  a  red  sun  stared 
like  some  fearful,  watching  eye.  To  the  left,  and  strangely  white  in 
hue  against  this  veil  of  gloom  and  fire,  appeared  the  naked  arms 
of  a  tall  windmill.  Then  suddenly  the  cloud-lids  close  ;  the  fierce 
eye  sleeps,  the  pale  mill  vanishes,  the  drear  landscape  turns  dull,  and 
in  the  distance  disappears  ;  while  among  the  leafless  oaks  the  wind 
moans  the  requiem  of  another  winter's  day. 

On  my  homeward  path  I  met  Moore  travelling  from  Ditching- 
ham  with  three  horses  and  a  waggon,  whereon  was  piled  a  tower- 
ing load  of  thorn  bushes  to  be  used  in  the  draining  of  the  Denton 
field.  No.  2  2.  The  horses  stepping  along  merrily  as  they  neared 
the  stable,  the  rugged  face  of  their  driver,  the  swaying  burden  of 
the  rope-held  thorns,  the  faded  colours  of  the  waggon,  made 
together  a  homely  but  a  striking  picture  as  they  advanced  down 
the  deserted  road  in  the  gloom  of  a  short  twilight.  Why  I  scarcely 
know,  but  in  my  eyes  Bedingham  is  a  spot  endowed  with  a  pecu- 
liar charm,  perhaps  because  it  is  so  very  rural  and  so  unvisited. 
Here  at  least,  among  its  wet  and  dreary  fields  more  than  in  any 
other  place  in  England  with  which  I  am  acquainted,  do  I  seem  to 
discover  Nature's  actual  face  and  presence. 

The  want  of  bushes  is  becoming  a  serious  question  on  the  Moat 
Farm.  Of  late  years  we  have  drained  with  such  vigour  that  scarcely 
a  fence  is  left  to  cut,  so  that  now  most  of  the  necessary  stuff  must 
be  brought  from  Ditchingham.  By  the  way,  a  gentleman  review- 
ing an  early  instalment  of  this  book  in  an  agricultural  paper, 
pointed  the  finger  of  enlightened  scorn  at  a  passage  in  which  I  talk 
of  pipe-draining  as  a  waste  of  money  on  such  land  as  that  with' 


DECEMBER  421 

which  we  have  to  deal  at  Bedingham.  And  yet,  with  deference, 
I,  and  not  my  critic,  am  right.  A  neighbour  who  owns  some  still 
heavier  land,  within  the  last  few  years  spent  a  large  sum  of  money 
in  pipe-draining  it  in  the  best  possible  manner.  About  a  week 
ago,  however,  he  told  me  he  beHeved  that  this  tenacious  clay  had 
caked  down  so  hard  above  and  around  the  pipes  that  the  storm 
water,  instead  of  running  through  them,  hangs  about  on  the  almost 
impermeable  surface.  I  think  that  few  very  heavy  land  farmers  in 
our  part  of  the  country  would  go  to  the  expense  of  using  pipes 
upon  such  soil.  After  all,  the  experience  of  generations  generally 
tells  us  what  is  the  best  and  most  effective  method  of  dealing  with 
any  particular  class  of  land. 

December  12. — Both  yesterday  and  to-day  the  weather  has  re- 
mained of  extraordinary  mildness.  Roses  are  still  in  bloom,  and 
I  hear  that  a  plateful  of  ripe  raspberries  have  been  gathered  in  the 
Lodge  garden.  But  as  this  state  of  things  can  scarcely  be  expected 
to  continue  indefinitely,  we  are  getting  off  the  swedes  as  fast  as  we 
can  and  carting  them  straight  into  the  sheds.  Usually,  we  hale  up 
swedes,  but  this  year,  owing  to  the  shortness  of  the  crop,  we  have 
been  saved  that  labour.  Oddly  enough,  those  that  we  are  carting 
to-day  off  the  light  glebe  land,  where  one  might  have  expected  that 
the  drought  would  hit  them  hardest,  are  the  best  which  we  have 
grown  this  season. 

About  a  week  ago,  in  the  remarks  that  I  made  at  Norwich,  I 
said  incautiously  that  although  I  had  been  looking  for  a  long  while, 
I  was  quite  unable  to  find  a  young  and  skilled  farm-labourer  to 
take  into  my  employ.  This  statement  seems  to  have  been  re- 
ported throughout  England,  with  the  result  that  post  by  post  appli- 
cations pour  in  from  gentlemen  who  appear  to  desire  a  place  as 
bailiff.  Alas  !  I  can  assure  them  that  were  any  person  with  land 
on  hand  merely  to  whisper  that  he  wanted  a  farm-steward,  next 
morning  he  would  probably  find  his  bag  crowded  with  letters,  and 
very  possibly  several  applicants  awaiting  him  in  the  garden. 
There    are    but    too    many   unfortunate    farmers    who,    having 


422  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

conspicuously  failed  in  the  management  of  their  own  affairs,  would 
be  rejoiced  to  obtain  such  a  place,  where  they  have  light  work,  no 
risk,  a  position  of  authority,  enough  to  live  on  and  a  good  house 
to  live  in.  It  is  the  labourer  who  is  scarce,  not  the  overseer  who 
looks  after  him. 

One  of  these  letters  shows  so  extraordinary  a  misapprehension 
of  the  facts  connected  with  English  farming  that  I  cannot  refrain 
from  comment. 

The  writer,  who  appears  to  have  passed  through  agricultural 
colleges  &c.,  says  that  finding  a  post  as  an  estate  agent  difficult 
to  obtain,  he  has  decided  to  take  up  '  ordinary  agriculture,'  any 
branch  of  which  he  is  ready  to  follow.  His  suggestion  is  that 
I  should  employ  him,  I  suppose  as  an  '  ordinary  agriculturist,' 
and  in  return  for  his  services  pay  him  1501.  a  year,  although  he 
intimates  that  to  begin  with  he  might  take  a  smaller  wage. 

Now,  this  gentleman  must  have  known  perfectly  well  that  I 
was  speaking  of  the  scarcity  of  skilled  labouiers,  for  in  his  letter 
he  has  written  '  farm  labourers,'  although  it  is  true  that  he  has 
altered  the  words  to  'farm  managers.'  What  wage,  then,  does 
he  suppose  that  we  pay  labourers  in  the  Eastern  Counties  ? 
Even  if  it  is  a  post  as  manager  that  he  seeks,  his  ideas  are 
liberal.  With  the  exception  of  one  very  great  estate,  I  know  of 
none  which  pays  so  much  as  he  asks,  or  indeed  more  than  loo/.  a 
year.  These  are  not  the  times  when  even  an  ordinary  working 
bailiff  can  expect  to  draw  3/.  a  week. 

Talking  of  post-bags,  I  wonder  if  everybody  in  my  modest 
station  is  the  recipient  of  quite  so  many  begging  letters  and  appeals 
of  all  sorts  as  fall  to  my  lot,  among  them  such  trifles  as  requests 
to  do  literary  work  for  nothing — these  are  frequent — or  to  entirely 
re-write  the  lengthy  novels  of  strangers. 

I  imagine  that  nearly  half  the  correspondence  I  receive,  which 
is  considerable,  comes  from  people  who  want  things  of  one  sort 
or  another ;  indeed,  I  am  beginning  to  believe  that  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  world  is  engaged  in  a  perpetual  and  frantic 
struggle  to  get  something  for  nothing  out  of  the  remainder.     Nor 


DECEMBER  423 

are  these  people  always  either  grateful  or  courteous.  Take  the 
common  example  of  autograph  collectors,  for  instance — I  do  not 
suppose  that  more  than  three  per  cent,  of  them  think  it  worth  while 
to  say  thank  you  to  the  person  who,  oil  his  part,  has  taken  the 
trouble  to  gratify  their  peculiar  form  of  weakness. 

Occasionally^  also,  one  has  fallen  into  temptation,  and,  in  re- 
sponse to  piteous  appeals,  sent  such  money  as  could  be  afforded. 
According  to  my  experience,  however,  this  is  not  a  practice  to  be 
recommended.  Once  it  involved  me  in  a  three  days'  journey  to 
Manchester  and  back,  to  appear  as  a  witness  against  a  miserable 
scoundrel  who  had  imposed  upon  me  by  pretending  that  he  was  a 
poor  young  wife  about  to  be  laid  by,  with  a  sick  and  starving 
husband  dependent  upon  her  efforts.  Often  I  have  sent  letters 
of  this  nature  to  that  splendid  institution,  the  Charity  Organisa- 
tion Society,  and  it  is  a  fact  that  never  in  my  recollection  have 
the  cases  detailed  in  them  turned  out  to  be  genuine.  Only  the 
other  day  through  it  I  was  avenged  upon  a  female  who  has 
pestered  me  for  years.  This  time — she  has  done  it  before — 
she  sent  me  the  usual  pawn  ticket  with  a  request  for  a  remittance. 
I  forwarded  it  to  the  local  branch  of  the  Charity  Organisation 
Society,  intimating  to  my  correspondent  that  she  might  call 
there.  She  did  call,  doubtless  expecting  a  remittance,  and  as  she 
was  well  known  to  the  official  in  charge,  I  gather  that  the  visit 
proved  quite  lively. 

Impostors  like  these  to  my  mind  are  truly  wicked  people,  for 
they  poison  the  very  fount  of  charity,  make  the  trustful  suspicious, 
and,  worst  of  all,  give  an  excuse  to  rich  men  of  niggardly  nature 
{^penurious  retainers  of  superfluous  wealth ')  to  shut  their  purse- 
strings  to  many  a  good  cause, '  for  fear  lest  they  should  be  imposed 
upon.' 

Curiously  enough,  however,  the  cases  which  seem  the  most 
suspicious  are  sometimes  honest.  Here  is  one  instance  that  I 
remember.  A  lady,  who  was  a  total  stranger  to  me,  wrote,  telling 
this  tale  :  That  she  and  her  husband  were  earning  their  livelihood 
by  some  form  of  literary  work  ;  that  so  soon  as  their  gains  were 


424  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

sufficient  they  had  felt  justified  in  marrying  and  buying  their 
furniture  upon  the  hire  system ;  that  they  did  very  well,  but  when 
some  small  sum  only  was  left  to  pay  upon  the  furniture,  they  were 
both  stricken  by  scarlet  fever,  and  both  rendered  deaf  or  blind,  I 
forget  which  ;  that  they  had  prospect  of  recovery,  but  were  friend- 
less, and  unless  the  required  assistance  was  forthcoming,  their  goods 
would  be  seized  and  they  must  be  reduced  to  utter  ruin.  To  all 
appearance  this  case  presented  every  symptom  of  fraud,  but  as 
I  happened  to  have  a  friend,  who  is  a  solicitor,  living  in  the 
same  town,  I  asked  him  to  be  so  kind  as  to  make  inquiries.  It 
turned  out  to  be  genuine  in  every  particular,  and  by  a  little  timely 
help  the  persons  concerned  were  enabled  to  turn  the  corner  of  their 
trouble,  or  so  I  gathered  from  a  letter  subsequently  received. 
What  has  become  of  them  now  I  do  not  know,  but  the  lady  pro- 
mised that  when  she  was  'a  famous  woman'  I  should  hear  from 
her  again. 

In  conclusion  of  this  subject:  Final  Notice.  To  the  vast 
Something-for-Nothing  Public.  This  agricultural  scribe  is  not 
a  successful  playwright  and  as  yet  farming  has  been  his  most 
fortunate  speculation  !     Try or — or —  Verbum  sap. 

To-day  there  was  a  meeting  at  this  house,  with  one  of 
the  medical  gentlemen  of  our  neighbourhood  in  the  chair,  to 
discuss  the  possibility  of  establishing  a  Queen's  nurse  to  attend 
on  the  sick  in  Ditchingham  and  adjacent  parishes.  I  trust 
that  the  usual  money  difficulties  may  be  overcome,  for  I  am 
convinced  that  these  properly  trained  and  qualified  nurses  are  one 
of  the  greatest  boons  that  can  be  bestowed  upon  a  rural  district. 
Within  my  own  experience  in  this  village  alone,  I  know  of  several 
cases  in  which  the  patients  have  died  for  the  lack  of  timely 
ministrations  from  such  a  person,  and  to-day  the  doctor  who  was  in 
the  chair  gave  other  instances.  If  the  money  which  is  so  often 
taken  from  the  proceeds  of  ancient  charities,  such  as  we  have  in 
this  place,  to  be  distributed  in  the  form  of  coals,  were  devoted 
to  this  end,  it  would,  in  my  view,  be  far  more  advantageously 
employed. 


DECEMBER  425 

Personally,  I  dislike  these  fuel  doles,  which  are  most  trouble- 
some to  distribute,  lead  to  a  great  deal  of  bitterness,  and  come  to  be 
regarded,  not  as  a  means  of  relief  to  the  very  poor  in  cold  weather, 
butas  an  endowment  in  which  everybody  has  a  right  to  share.  1  hus 
in  past  years  I  have  found  men  in  my  own  employ,  who  were  in 
every  way  well-to-do  for  their  station,  applying  for  and  receiving 
an  allowance  of  coal.  Surely  the  pious  founders  of  the  charity,  who 
died  so  many  centuries  ago  that  even  their  names  are  not  known  to- 
day, can  never  have  intended  that  their  gifts  should  be  put  to  such  a 
purpose.  They  must  have  wished  to  help  the  poor,  and  to  the 
poor  that  portion  of  the  fund  which  is  allocated  to  them  ought  to 
go.  Surely,  also,  the  money  cannot  be  better  employed  than  by 
providing  thoroughly  competent  nurses  in  time  of  sickness,  and 
especially  in  maternity  cases,  when  the  labourers'  wives  are  too 
often  left  to  the  tender  mercies  of  a  neighbour,  or  of  a  well- 
meaning,  but  ignorant.  Gamp. 

December  14. — Yesterday  the  weather  was  almost  ideal  for  the 
time  of  year,  mild,  windless,  and  sunny,  and  in  it  we  made  good 
progress  with  our  ploughing  and  root-carting. 

To-day  I  went  with  a  friend,  who  is  one  of  the  guardians  of  the 
poor  for  this  district,  to  visit  Heckingham  Workhouse,  where  I  have 
not  been  for  about  fourteen  years.  Once  I  was  a  guardian  there 
myself,  and  in  that  capacity  used  to  sit  upon  the  Board,  but  after 
a  year  or  two's  experience  of  it  I  resigned  the  office,  v/hich  I  confess 
I  did  not  find  congenial.  There  are  few  things  more  depressing  than 
to  listen,  fortnight  by  fortnight,  to  the  tales  of  utter  poverty  and 
woe  poured  out  by  the  applicants  for  relief  from  the  rates. 

Heckingham  is  the  workhouse  for  the  Loddon  and  Clavering 
Union,  in  which  are  included  forty-one  parishes,  with  a  total 
population  of  about  thirteen  thousand  five  hundred.  The  large 
and  rambling  red-brick  erection,  that  is  of  the  accustomed 
ugliness,  was  built  about  1763,  when  it  was  called  a  House  of 
Industry.  In  1836  it  became  the  Union  Workhouse,  with 
accommodation  for  five  hundred  and  ten  inmates,  although  the 


426  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

present  total  of  its  occupants  is  only  ninety-two,  which  means,  of 
course,  that  the  district  has  to  keep  up  a  much  more  extensive 
building  than  is  necessary.  When  I  was  a  guardian,  I  think  that 
we  had  a  roll-call  of  about  one  hundred  and  thirty. 

It  astonished  me  to-day  to  see  how  greatly  the  conditions  of 
existence  at  Heckingham  have  been  improved  of  late  years.  Now 
it  resembles  an  infirmary  for  the  aged  poor,  rather  than  the  last 
shelter  to  which  the  destitute  are  driven  by  necessity.  In  the  old 
days,  indeed,  it  was  a  dreary  place ;  for  instance,  I  remember  the 
sick  ward,  a  cold  and  desolate  room,  where  two  children,  to  whom 
I  used  to  carry  toys,  a  twin  brother  and  sister,  lay  dreadfully  ill  of 
some  scrofulous  disease,  with  no  fire  in  the  grate,  and,  so  far  as  I 
recollect,  no  trained  nurse  to  wait  upon  them.  To-day  that  ward  is 
bright  and  cheerful,  with  a  good  fire  burning  in  it  and  a  properly 
certificated  attendant  to  minister  to  the  wants  of  its  occupants. 
By  the  way,  this  afternoon  I  heard  the  fate  of  those  stricken 
twins.  The  girl  died  almost  immediately  after  I  knew  her,  but 
the  boy  recovered  sufficiently  to  emigrate  to  America. 

The  only  people  in  the  workhouse  to-day  who  were  there  in 
my  time  are  the  master,  an  inmate  named  Sam  Reeder  (who 
used  to  put  up  my  pony  when  I  visited  the  place),  and  another 
aged  and  imbecile  man.  All  the  rest  have  gone,  a  good  many  of 
them  underground,  I  suppose.  Reeder  I  found  laid  up  with  asthma, 
but  he  knew  me  again  at  once.  With  several  intervals  he  has 
inhabited  this  house  for  about  a  quarter  of  a  century.  In  the 
same  room  there  was  another  old  fellow  lying  in  bed  with  a  great 
roll  of  flannel  tied  round  his  throat.  I  asked  him  what  was  the 
matter  with  him,  and  he  replied  that  he  was  suffering  from  '  poll- 
sickness,'  which,  as  he  alleged,  he  had  caught  from  a  horse  by 
sleeping  in  a  rug  belonging  to  the  said  horse.  ■  Poll-sickness,  it 
seems,  is  a  kind  of  sore  or  abscess  which  horses  get  from  knock- 
ing their  heads  against  low  doorways,  and  is  commonly  supposed 
to  be  incurable.  Therefore  the  old  gentleman,  whose  name  is 
Lawes,  assured  me  that,  as  he  had  taken  it  from  a  horse,  his 
ailment  also  was  incurable.     He  told  me  too  that  he  had  cut  up 


DECEMBER  427 

hayricks  for  me  before  now,  and  that  his  daughter  was  servant  in 
this  house  eighteen  years  ago,  when  I  married. 

Never  shall  I  forget  my  early  experiences  of  Heckingham  Work- 
house. Having  been  elected  a  guardian,  I  attended  the  Board  in  due 
course,  and,  as  is  too  often  my  fortune,  at  the  very  first  meeting 
fell  into  controversy.  At  that  date  all  children  in  the  house, 
including  infants,  were  fed  upon  skimmed  milk.  Owing  to  some 
illness,  however,  the  doctor  ordered  them  a  ration  of  fresh  milk, 
which  ration  the  master  had  neglected  to  discontinue  when  the 
sickness  passed.  Consequently  there  arose  trouble,  and  with 
the  doctor  he  was  brought  up  before  the  Board  to  be  questioned 
and  reprimanded.  Thereon,  with  all  the  courage  of  inexperience, 
I  rose  and  announced  boldly  that  I  considered  new  milk  to  be  a 
necessity  to  infants,  and  that,  if  I  could  find  a  seconder,  I  would 
propose  that  the  allowance  should  be  continued  to  them  until  they 
reached  the  age  of  nine  years.  Somewhat  to  my  astonishment  a 
worthy  clergyman,  now  long  dead,  seconded  the  motion,  and 
there  followed  a  great  debate.  Soon  we  found  that  it  would  be 
absolutely  hopeless  to  carry  the  innovation  in  its  original  form, 
and  were  therefore  obliged  to  reduce  the  age  limit  from  nine  to 
five  years. 

The  argument  of  the  opposition  was  that  the  children  were  not 
fed  upon  new  milk  in  their  own  homes,  to  which  I  replied  that  even 
if  they  were  starved  at  home,  it  was  no  reason  why  they  should 
be  starved  when  in  the  public  charge.  Ultimately  the  Board 
divided,  and  to  my  surprise  I  carried  the  motion  by  a  majority  of 
one  vote,  so  that  thenceforth  the  infants  at  Heckingham  were 
rationed  with  fresh  milk  instead  of  '  blue  skim.' 

Now  I  hear  that  the  age  limit  has  been  raised  to  what  I 
originally  proposed,  namely,  nine  years. 

I  remember  that  in  those  days  I  thought  the  condition  of  the 
graveyard  not  all  that  it  should  be.  It  lies  in  an  open  meadow  of 
about  two  acres,  on  which  cows  were  grazed,  and  the  visitor, 
standing  at  the  top  and  looking  down  it,  could,  and  indeed  can 
still,  see  long  lines  of  little  mounds,  some  of  them  sunk  below  the 


428  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

level  owing  to  a  collapse  of  the  coffin  beneath,  and  some  in  process 
of  being  trodden  flat  by  the  hooves  of  cattle.  There,  with  never 
a  stone  or  even  a  wooden  cross  to  mark  their  place,  rest  the  bones 
of  those  unclaimed  paupers  who,  for  the  last  century,  have  passed 
through  the  portals  of  Heckingham.  On  the  occasion  of  my  first 
visit  to  this  dismal  spot,  the  pond  at  the  bottom  of  the  field  had 
been  fyed  out  and  its  contents  strewn  about  the  graves  to  enrich 
the  grass.  History  repeats  itself,  for  to-day,  after  many  years,  I 
find  the  pond  again  being  fyed  out  and  its  mud  used  for  the  same 
fertilising  purpose. 

Otherwise,  however,  there  is  great  improvement,  for  that  part' 
of  the  field  where  interments  have  been  made  during  the  last 
twenty  years  has  been  fenced  off  with  posts  and  barbed  wire.  I 
confess  it  is  a  question  to  my  mind  whether  a  place  that  is  full  of 
dead — even  if  they  be  paupei  dead — should  be  used  at  all  as  a 
common  grazing  ground  for  cattle,  although  to  this  it  might  be, 
answered  that  it  is  useless  to  waste  the  feed  of  an  acre  and  a  half 
of  land,  and  that  Boards  of  Guardians  are  in  no  position  to  indulge 
in  sentiment.  The  improvements  notwithstanding,  it  cannot  be  said 
that  the  spot  has  become  attractive,  and  personally,  although  I  am 
neither  exclusive  nor  particular,  I  should  prefer  not  to  lay  my  bones 
in  the  burial-field  of  Heckingham  Workhouse.  Indeed,  it  strikes  me 
that  the  Crematorium  has  great  advantages  over  the  most  sumptu- 
ous and  select  of  graves.  The  pity  is  that  those  among  us  who 
think  thus  must  be  carried  so  far  to  reach  its  purgatorial  fires. 

In  truth,  to  whatever  extent  it  may  be  brightened  and  rendered 
habitable,  one  cannot  pretend  that  a  workhouse  is  a  cheerful  place. 
The  poor  girls,  with  their  illegitimate  children  creeping,  dirty-faced, 
across  the  floor  of  brick ;  the  old,  old  women  lying  in  bed  too 
feeble  to  move,  or  crouching  round  the  fire  in  their  mob-caps,  some 
of  them  stern-faced  with  much  gazing  down  the  dim  vista  of  the 
past,  peopled  for  them  with  dead,  with  much  brooding  on 
the  present  and  the  lot  which  it  has  brought  them  ;  others  vacuous 
and  smiling — '  a  little  gone,'  the  master  whispers  ;  others  quite 
childish  and  full  of  complaints  \  all  of  these  are  no  more  cheerful 


DECEMBER  429 

to  look  on  than  is  the  dull  appropriate  light  of  this  December  after- 
noon. The  old  men,  too,  their  hands  knobbed  and  knotted  with 
decades  of  hard  work,  their  backs  bent,  their  faces  often  almost 
grotesque,  like  those  caricatures  of  humanity  we  see  carved  upon 
the  handle  of  a  stick,  come  here  at  last  in  reward  of  their  labours 
— well,  as  the  French  writer  says,  ^  cela  donnefm-ieusement  a penser.^ 
It  is  not  the  place  that  is  so  melancholy,  it  is  this  poignant  example 
of  the  sad  end  of  life  and  all  its  toilings ;  it  is  the  forlorn,  half-dazed 
aspect  of  these  battered  human  hulks  who  once  were  young,  and 
strong,  and  comely. 

Year  by  year  fewer  people  seem  to  drift  into  the  House,  I 
suppose  because  of  the  shrinkage  of  the  population,  coupled  with 
an  extension  of  the  system  of  outdoor  relief.  This  system  is  one 
that,  without  precautions,  lends  itself  to  fraud  and  the  waste  of 
public  money,  although  I  believe  in  it  myself  if  it  is  properly  and 
carefully  administered.  In  some  cases,  however,  when  they  are 
alone  in  the  world  and  too  helpless  to  do  much  for  themselves,  the 
aged  poor  are  doubtless  much  better  off  in  the  House  than  dragging 
out  the  dregs  of  a  miserable  existence  with  the  help  of  two  shillings 
a  week  and  a  stone  of  flour.  Here  at  least  they  are  kept  warm  and 
clean,  and  find  suitable  nursing  and  attendance  until  the  end  comes. 
The  food  also  is  much  better  and  more  plentiful  than  they  can 
hope  to  enjoy  at  home. 

And  yet  how  they  hate  it,  most  of  them.  In  this  parish  dwells 
a  vacuous  but  amiable  old  fellow  called  Turk  Taylor,  who  has  no 
belongings  and  picks  up  a  living  heaven  knows  how,  for  beyond  a 
parish  cottage  which  he  occupies,  and  some  small  allowance  from 
the  rates,  supplemented  by  an  occasional  job  of  pig-herding,  he  has 
no  visible  means  of  subsistence.  Five  or  six  years  ag6,  in  the 
course  of  a  very  hard  winter,  I  heard  that  poor  Turk  Taylor  had 
been  found  lying  on  the  floor  of  his  cottage  at  death's  door  from 
cold  and  starvation.  He  Avas  attended  to  and  his  wants  relieved, 
and  afterwards  an  attempt  was  made  to  remove  him  to  the  work- 
house. If  I  remember  rightly  the  relieving  officer  actually  came 
to  fetch  him,  but  the  poor  old  man,  getting  wind  of  his  designs, 


430  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

hid  himself  in  a  ditch  until  that  official  had  departed,  with  the 
result  that  he  still  continues  his  free  but  precarious  existence. 

After  all,  his  terror  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  when  we  remember 
that  were  we  suddenly  to  be  deported  to  America  to  end  our  days, 
it  would  scarcely  be  a  greater  break  to  us  than  his  removal  to 
Heckingham,  seven  miles  away,  is  to  such  a  person.  Once  there 
he  cannot  get  out  of  the  place,  for  he  is  too  feeble  to  visit  his 
former  haunts,  and  even  if  he  has  descendants  or  relatives,  they  very 
rarely  come  to  see  him— perhaps  never  until  they  are  summoned 
to  fetch  away  the  body,  for  few  care  to  '  keep  up '  with  a  relation 
in  the  House.  In  short,  he  is  divorced  from  the  old  surroundings, 
to  which  he  has  been  accustomed  for  sixty  or  seventy  years,  and 
caged  among  strangers  in  a  strange  land;  doomed,  when  the 
bread  of  charity  has  been  eaten  to  its  last  bitter  crumb,  there  to 
die  and  be  thrust  away,  perhaps  beneath  one  of  those  nameless 
mounds  in  the  grave-field,  where,  staring  vacantly  through  the 
fence,  he  can  see  the  Union  cows  at  grass. 

Better,  argues  such  an  one  as  Turk  Taylor,  is  freedom  than 
such  a  fate  as  this,  although  to  be  free  may  mean  starvation  in  a 
fireless  house.  Perhaps,  under  similar  circumstances,  some  of  us 
would  come  to  a  like  conclusion. 

What  do  these  old  fellows  think  about,  I  wonder,  as  they  hobble 
to  and  fro  round  those  measureless  precincts  of  bald  brick?  The 
sweet- eyed  children  that  they  begot  and  bred  up  fifty  years  ago,  per- 
haps, whose  pet  names  they  still  remember,  dead  or  lost  to  them  to- 
day for  the  most  part ;  or  the  bright  waving  cornfields  whence  they 
scared  birds  when  they  were  lads  from  whom  death  and  trouble  were 
yet  a  long  way  off.  I  dare  say,  too,  that  deeper  problems  worry 
them  at  times  in  some  dim  half-apprehended  fashion ;  at  least  I 
thought  so  when  the  other  day  I  sat  behind  two  of  them  in  a  church 
near  the  workhouse.  They  could  not  read,  and  I  doubt  if  they 
understood  much  of  what  was  passing,  but  I  observed  consideration 
in  their  eyes.  Of  what  ?  Of  the  terror  and  the  marvel  of  existence, 
perhaps,  and  of  that  good  God  whereof  the  parson  is  talking  in 
those  long  unmeaning  words.     God  !  They  know  more  of  the  devil 


DECEMBER  431 

and  all  his  works ;  ill-paid  labour,  poverty,  pain,  and  the  infinite  un- 
recorded tragedies  of  humble  lives.  God  ?  They  have  never  found 
Him.  He  must  live  beyond  the  workhouse  wall— out  there  in  the 
graveyard — in  the  waterlogged  holes  which  very  shortly 

Or  perhaps  their  reflections  are  confined  to  memories  of  the 
untoothsome  dinner  of  the  yesterday  and  hopes  of  the  meat  pud- 
ding and  tobacco  to-morrow.  Who  can  tell  ?  It  would  be  useless 
to  ask  them. 

At  Heckingham  there  is  a  yard  where  tramps,  in  payment  of 
their  lodging,  are  set  to  break  granite  to  be  used  in  road  repairs. 
To-day  I  had  a  try  at  this  granite  breaking,  and  a  poor  hand  I 
made  of  the  task.  I  hit  hard  and  I  hit  softly,  I  hit  with  the  grain 
and  across  it,  I  tried  the  large  and  the  small  hammer.  As  a  result 
flakes  of  sharp  stone  flew  up  and  struck  me  smartly  in  the  face, 
but  very  little  granite  did  I  succeed  in  breaking.  My  companion 
tried  also,  and  after  him  the  master,  who  said  that  he  understood 
the  game,  but  neither  of  them  did  any  better.  I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  even  in  breaking  stones  there  must  be  a  hidden  art. 

If  I  remember  right,  this  tough  northern  granite  was  first  intro- 
duced in  my  own  days  of  office,  or  just  before  them,  to  provide  occu- 
pation for  a  really  remarkable  rogue — a  '  master  '  rogue,  as  they  say 
here — who,  in  those  times,  lived  upon  the  rates.  This  man,  who 
was  as  strong  as  a  horse,  absolutely  declined  to  do  steady  work. 
Numerous  were  the  attempts  of  the  guardians  to  be  rid  of  him  ; 
once,  for  instance,  they  paid  his  passage  to  Hull,  whence  he 
promptly  tramped  back  again  to  Heckingham.  Then  some 
inventive  genius  bethought  him  of  this  hard  granite,  which  proved 
effectual,  for  he  took  his  discharge.  Not  long  after  he  reappeared, 
and  with  him  a  widow  whom  he  had  married  in  the  interval, 
and  eight  of  her  children.  That  was  his  repartee  to  the  granite. 
Needless  to  explain  the  House  was  forced  to  extend  its  hospitality 
to  his  ready-made  family  at  the  expense  of  the  ratepayers  of  the 
Union. 

Many  stories  are  told  of  the  misery  that  existed  before  the 
passing  of  the  present  Poor  Laws,  but  here  is  a  fact  illustrative  of 


432  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

the  feeling  of  the  labouring  classes  when  workhouses  were  first  built, 
about  sixty  years  ago.  My  friend,  who  conducted  me  over 
Heckingham,  tells  me  that  not  long  ago  he  visited  the  House  of 
the  Depwade  Union,  which  is  situated,  I  believe,  at  Pulham  St. 
Mary,  in  order  to  inspect  the  hot-water  system  in  use  there,  and 
was  astonished  to  see  that  it  is  loopholed  for  musketry.  On  inquir- 
ing the  reason,  he  heard  that  when  it  was  built,  about  1836,  the  feel- 
ing among  the  poor  of  the  neighbourhood  grew  so  bitter  that  they 
came  at  night  to  pull  down  the  brickwork  which  had  been  set 
during  the  day.  So  determined  were  their  efforts  that  at  last  a 
guard  armed  with  rifles  was  placed  behind  these  loopholed  walls 
to  protect  the  rising  fabric. 

The  whole  question  of  Poor  Law  relief — at  any  rate  in  our 
rural  districts— is  very  complicated,  and  one  which  I  will  not 
attempt  to  discuss  in  the  narrow  space  at  my  disposal.  It  seems 
quite  open  to  argument,  however,  whether  in  our  days  of  dwindling 
population,  instead  of  keeping  up  these  great  buildings  for  the 
accommodation  of  but  a  small  percentage  of  the  number  of  inmates 
that  they  were  designed  to  contain,  it  would  not  be  more  economi- 
cal and  satisfactory  to  institute  some  well-considered  system  of 
local  parish  homes. 

The  mild  weather  holds,  and  on  the  farm  we  are  still  plough- 
ing and  carting  root. 

December  15. — To-day  the  weather  remains  very  fine,  although 
it  has  turned  more  chilly.  The  sky  this  afternoon  was  excep- 
tionally clear,  and  through  it  the  sun  sank  large  and  red,  betoken- 
ing frost.  Seldom  have  I  seen  its  light  look  more  beautiful  than 
it  did  this  evening  on  the  brimming  river  and  the  rich  green 
common,  as  I  viewed  them  from  the  crest  of  the  Vineyard  Hihs. 
Above  the  sinking  orb  hung  one  long  cloud,  whereof  the  upper 
edge  was  tinged  with  fire.  The  appearance  of  this  wavering  line 
of  flame  was  exactly  similar  to  that  of  a  distant  grass  fire  crawling 
forward  over  the  African  veld  at  night ;  while,  to  complete  the 
resemblance,  against  the  blue  sky  above  it  floated  dark  streamers  of 


DECEMBER  433 

vapour  like  smoke  boinci  backwards  by  the  wind.  This  mild  and 
open  weather  is  very  favourable  to  the  cows  and  cattle,  which  can 
run  upon  the  pastures  all  day,  saving  the  hayricks  by  filling 
themselves  with  grass,  and  at  the  same  time  finding  healthy 
exercise. 

To-day  another  magistrate  and  I  held  a  special  sittings  of  the 
Bench  to  try  the  case  of  a  girl  of  sixteen  years  of  age  who  was 
accused  of  the  crime  of  attempted  suicide.  She  ran  away  from 
the  farmhouse  where  she  was  in  service,  and  on  being  sent  back 
by  her  parents,  as  it  is  alleged,  tried  to  drown  herself  in  a  pond. 
The  case  was  chiefly  remarkable  for  the  curious  discretion  shown 
by  this  child.  When  cautioned  by  the  police-constable  on  her 
arrest,  she  made  no  statement  whatsoever ;  also  when  the  option  was 
given  her,  under  the  provisions  of  the  new  Act,  of  giving  evidence, 
she  declined  to  go  into  the  box  or  to  say  anything ;  with  the  result, 
I  am  glad  to  say,  that  there  was  practically  no  legal  evidence  upon 
which  she  could  be  committed  for  trial.  In  the  end,  with  the 
consent  of  her  father,  on  the  application  of  a  representative  of  the 
Police  Court  Mission,  a  society  to  whose  admirable  work,  after  some 
years  of  experience,  I  wish  humbly  to  testify,  she  was  handed  over 
to  its  charge,  to  become  an  inmate  of  a  training  home. 

December  17. — Yesterday  and  to-day  we  have  been  shooting 
cock  pheasants  in  Hedenham  and  Tindale  woods,  in  weather 
more  mild,  I  think,  than  any  that  I  can  remember  at  this  time  of 
year. 

When  standing  in  silence  at  the  far  end  of  a  long  beat  It  is 
curious  and  strangely  interesting  to  watch  the  behaviour  of  the 
various  beasts  and  birds  which  it  contains.  Every  one  of  these 
creatures  hears  the  beaters  the  moment  they  set  fOot  in  this 
section  of  the  wood,  and  while  they  are  still  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
or  so  away  at  once  devote  their  minds — or  Instincts — to  escape. 

When  the  Gun  at  the  far  end  of  the  fell  takes  up  his  stand  there, 
a  complete  stillness  will  probably  reign  about  hiim,  broken  only 
at  intervals  by  the  aggressive  chatter  of  a  golden-billed  blackbird, 

F  F 


434  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

or  the  sound  of  a  squirrel,  which  is  still  abroad  in  this  warm 
season  running  over  the  dead  leaves,  or  scampering  up  the  trunk 
of  an  oak-tree  with  an  acorn  in  its  mouth.  Presently,  however, 
from  far  away  the  keeper's  voice  can  be  heard  in  the  still  air 
asking  the  beaters  if  they  are  all  ready,  followed  by  the  answering 
*  Ayes '  of  the  men  and  a  faint  rattHng  of  sticks. 

A  swift-winged  wood  pigeon  passes  high  over  head,  quite  out 
of  shot  indeed ;  then  there  is  a  rustling  sound  amongst  the  sere 
twigs  and  mosses,  and  the  watcher,  if  he  be  quick-eyed,  may  catch 
sight  of  something  brown  moving  to  and  fro  in  front  of  him. 
What  it  is  he  cannot  see,  for  the  creature  keeps  itself  hidden 
behind  the  brown  hazel-stubs  or  the  grey-green  growths  of  ash, 
but  he  knows  from  the  motion,  which  seems  to  rise  and  fall, 
and  also  from  the  sound  of  the  disturbed  leaves,  that  it  is  not 
a  bird. 

The  thing  vanishes,  then  appears  again,  and  at  last  comes  for- 
ward more  boldly,  and  shows  itself  to  be  a  hare.  Catching  sight  of 
its  arch-enemy,  man,  who  cuts  it  off  from  the  retreat  which  it  was 
seeking,  it  stops  suddenly,  and  perhaps  sits  up  as  though  it  were 
begging  for  its  life,  its  beautiful  soft  eyes  fixed  upon  that  dread 
and  unexpected  vision.  Then  probably  the  man,  following  his 
instincts,  lifts  the  gun  and  shoots  it,  turning  its  happy  breath, 
perfect  shape  and  smooth  fur  into  a  screaming,  kicking,  gory  heap, 
for  that  is  what  man— gentle,  beneficent  man — is  out  to  do.  Or 
perhaps  he  does  not  shoot,  from  compunction  or  because  he 
thinks  the  game  too  near,  whereon,  taking  fright,  the  hare  wheels 
round  and  dashes  off  at  speed,  trying  the  boundaries  of  the  beat 
here  and  there,  till  at  length,  let  us  hope,  it  finds  a  place  where 
it  can  creep  through  unobserved,  and,  unmaimed  by  shot,  speed 
away,  safe  until  another  season. 

Next  there  comes  a  quicker  pattering  among  the  dead  sticks 
and  foliage,  and  another  brown  thing  runs  up  and  crouches, 
vanishing  altogether  except  for  a  bright  and  beady  eye.  This 
is  a  hen  pheasant,  that  presently  rises  and  fiies  away,  but  so 
low  that  even  the  youngest  or  most  ardent  sportsman  dare  not 


DECEMBER  435 

shoot  it,  fearing  lest  he  should  hit  some  other  sportsman  in 
the  face. 

Again  comes  the  pattering,  and  with  it  a  gleam  of  green  and 
gold,  and  this  time  an  old  cock  appears  bent  upon  escape, 
whoever  else  may  fall  a  victim.  He  runs  up,  a  gorgeous-looking 
bird,  catches  sight  of  the  Gun,  runs  back  again  and  tries  the  little 
leg  of  underwood  to  his  left,  only  to  find  himself  face  to  face  with 
a  boy  who  has  been  placed  there  for  the  express  purpose  of  stopping 
him  and  his  fellows.  Then  he  turns  and  rushes  down  the  fell 
like  a  race-horse,  till  presently,  with  a  crow  and  a  sound  of  beat- 
ing wings  which  it  is  almost  impossible  to  describe,  he  bursts  his 
way  through  the  undergrowth,  perhaps  to  come  over  high  and  die 
rocketing  as  a  good  pheasant  should ;  perhaps  to  be  happily 
missed ;  or  perhaps  to  slip  away  with  such  cunning  that  no  one 
gets  a  shot  at  him. 

Now  the  ear  catches  a  rapid  scampering  noise,  and  yonder, 
badly  frightened  by  the  cock  pheasant,  which  has  almost  trodden 
on  it,  a  grey  rabbit,  that  has  crept  forward  stealthily,  runs  back 
again  at  full  tilt,  only,  alas  !  to  be  caught  by  a  charge  of  shot 
and  sent  tumbling  over  stone  dead.  There  it  lies,  its  little  mud- 
stained  paws  pointing  upwards,  and  the  white  fur  of  its  stomach 
making  a  patch  of  light  which  catches  the  eye  as  it  travels  to  and 
fro  over  the  dull  carpet  of  sere  leaves  where  poor  Coney  is 
stretched  out. 

Before  the  beaters  got  to  work  the  hoarse  cries  of  jays  could 
be  heard  echoing  far  down  the  quiet  covert,  but  from  the  moment 
that  they  found  themselves  surrounded,  these  cunning  birds  have 
changed  their  tactics,  for  not  a  single  scream  now  issues  from 
their  painted  throats.  Up  and  down  the  beat  they  move  in  short 
dipping  flights,  refuging  in  every  convenient  tree,  and  travelling 
for  preference  almost  on  the  tops  of  the  brushwood.  At  last  they 
draw  near  the  end  and  determine  to  make  a  dash  for  liberty.  On 
comes  the  boldest  of  them,  till,  suddenly  catching  sight  of  the 
shining  gun-barrels,  weapons  of  which  he  seems  quite  to  under- 
stand the  use,  he  turns  in  a  wide  wheel  and  once  more  attempts 

F  F  2 


436  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

to  hide  his  too  conspicuous  self  among  the  bushes.  Presently, 
with  the  first  burst  of  pheasants,  these  jays  will  rise  and  cross  in 
their  company,  for  they  know  well  that  jays,  which,  by  the  way, 
notwithstanding  their  slow  flight,  are  very  hard  to  hit,  are  only 
shot  in  moments  of  idleness  and  waiting,  and  will  be  overlooked 
when  the  cocks  are  flying  fast. 

The  jays  have  gone,  and  for  a  minute  or  two  there  is  nothing  to 
study  except  the  light  falling  on  to  the  boles  of  the  oaks  so  clearly 
that  the  watcher  sees  every  little  frond  of  the  grey  lichen  which 
grows  upon  their  rugged  bark,  when  suddenly  far  away,  in  and 
out  among  the  trees,  passes  a  swift  brown  shadow.  It  disappears, 
it  appears  again,  it  comes  near,  rocking  from  side  to  side  on  those 
wide  wings  which  move  so  silently  and  carry  it  so  fast.  This  is  a 
woodcock,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  birds  that  flies,  although 
coloured  in  a  sombre  key.  So  close  does  he  pass  that  now  the  strong 
light  can  be  seen  shining  between  the  mandibles  of  his  tapered  bill 
and  on  his  brown,  searching  eye.  Too  late  he  perceives  his  danger 
and  twists  wildly,  but  without  avail,  for  the  shot  catches  him  and 
robs  him  of  his  life  and  beauty.  Never  again  can  the  lovely  creature 
hope  to  flit  across  the  moon-illumined  Norway  moss,  hugging  its 
young  against  that  pencilled  breast. 

Then  the  pheasants  begin  to  rise  in  bouquets,  so  that,  for  the 
next  five  minutes,  all  is  noise  and  gore  and  feathers,  and  some  are 
missed  and  some  are  killed  and  some,  I  fear,  are  wounded.  When 
the  slaughter  is  done  with  and  you  have  time  to  look  round  you  again, 
close  by,  on  an  oak  tree  to  the  right,  may  be  seen  a  tomtit  busily 
searching  for  insects  among  the  crevices  in  its  bark.  He  was  there 
before  the  firing  began  and  he  is  still  there,  for  he  knows  that  all 
this  fuss  and  fluster  does  not  concern  him,  since  no  reasonable 
being  wants  to  shoot  a  titmouse,  and  to  the  fate  of  the  great 
bullying  pheasants  he  is  quite  indifferent. 

To-day  while  I  was  walking  up  a  ride  of  Tindale  Wood,  as  it 
happened  without  a  gun  in  my  hand,  a  woodcock  rose  absolutely 
at  my  feet,  so  near  indeed  that  I  could  observe  its  every  feather. 
I  mention  this,  because  as  it  flew  away  the  bird  did  what,  person- 


DECEMBER  437 

ally,  I  have  never  heard  a  woodcock  do  before — uttered  a  low 
double  note  not  unlike  that  of  a  snipe,  but  much  less  shrill.  As 
nearly  as  I  can  copy  it  on  paper  this  was  the  noise  it  made, 
cheep-cheep.  By  the  way,  once  I  saw  a  curious  incident  occur  in 
this  covert.  I  was  walking  down  one  of  the  long  tunnel-like  drives 
when  a  woodcock  sprang  from  the  brushwood  exactly  in  the  same 
fashion  as  the  bird  of  which  1  have  been  writing.  So  close  did  it 
pass  that  my  loader  put  out  his  hand  and  caught  it,  much  as  a 
clever  field  might  take  a  ball  at  point.  This  bird,  I  remember, 
showed  no  outward  signs  of  having  been  wounded. 

There  were  about  a  dozen  woodcocks  in  the  covert  to-day,  but 
from  one  mischance  or  another,  very  few  were  shot.  Indeed,  no 
bird  is  more  frequently  missed  than  the  woodcock,  or  indirectly, 
I  may  add,%iore  dangerous  to  those  who  try  to  shoot  him.  Under 
the  cover  of  a  jest  there  is  wisdom  in  the  latter  half  of  the  old 
sporting  axiom  which  tells  the  beginner  when  he  hears  the  cry  of 
'Woodcock'  to  fire  both  barrels  straight  at  his  nearest  neigh- 
bour and  throw  himself  flat  on  to  his  face.  Once  I  was  shot 
through  the  hat  by  a  gentleman  intent  upon  bagging  a  low 
woodcock. 

I  suppose  that  shooting  as  a  sport  comes  in  for  more  contempt 
and  abuse  than  almost  any  other  form  of  outdoor  recreation. 
While  I  was  waiting  at  one  of  my  stands  to-day,  however,  and 
listening  to  the  long  line  of  beaters  as  they  approached,  it  occurred 
to  me  that  it  would  be  a  very  great  misfortune  if,  through  the 
abolition  of  the  game-laws,  or  any  other  cause,  it  ceased  to  be 
possible  in  this  country.  I  imagine  that  in  the  Eastern  Counties 
alone  such  a  thing  would  mean  the  loss  of  tens — I  almost  venture 
to  say  of  hundreds — of  thousands  of  pounds,  which  are  now  dis- 
tributed annually  amongst  the  owners  and  occupiers  of  the  soil, 
gamekeepers,  beaters,  gunmakers,  grain  and  patent-food  dealers, 
liverymen,  hotel-keepers,  parish  authorities  (shootings  pay  rates), 
and  a  hundred  others  who  directly  or  indirectly  benefit  by  the 
spending  of  money  in  a  place  Some  years  ago  1  shared 
with  two  friends  a  moderate-sized  shooting  in   Norfolk,  which 


438  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

otherwise  might  have  remained  untenanted.  A  careful  estimate 
of  the  amount  disbursed  showed  that  the  people  living  in  that 
village  benefited  to  the  extent  of  600/.  a  year  by  the  re-opening  of 
this  shooting  upon  a  suitable  scale;  that  is  to  say,  there  were 
600/.  to  spend  in  the  place  annually  which  before  it  had  to  do 
without. 

Another  of  the  good  sides  of  shooting  is  its  companionable 
opportunities.  Many  men  come  to  know  each  other  at  shooting 
parties  who,  although  near  neighbours,  otherwise  would  remain 
strangers  all  their  lives.  Also  as  a  by-product  it  provides  an 
enormous  supply  of  cheap  food  for  the  dwellers  in  towns.  These, 
together  with  the  healthiness  of  the  recreation,  are  some  of  the 
advantages  of  the  sport ;  indeed,  to  my  mind  its  only  disadvantage 
is  that  it  involves  the  necessity  of  putting  a  large  number  of 
creatures  to  a  death  which  is  sometimes  lingering.  Personally  I 
salve  my  conscience— or  try  to— with  the  thought  that  were  they 
not  destined  to  be  shot,  they  would  never  live  at  all,  and  that 
until  they  are  shot  their  fortunes  are  excellent.  Do  away  with 
shooting  and  in  twenty  years  scarcely  a  game-bird  would  exist  in 
England,  except  such  of  them  as  stress  of  weather  or  the  instinct 
of  migration  might  drive  upon  our  shores. 

The  shortest  day  has  passed.  Nature,  her  despair  outworn, 
turns  her  face  again  towards  light  and  life.  Little  wonder  that  our 
Norse  ancestors  made  a  great  Yule  feast  to  celebrate  the  birth  of 
the  new  season — the  season  of  the  lengthening  days  and  kindling 
sun. 

Christmas  Z^oy.—Upon  the  22nd  fell  the  first  frost  of  the 
year,  which  rendered  the  land  so  hard  that  on  the  following  day 
the  ploughs  could  only  just  manage  to  get  through  with  the  work 
of  breaking  up  the  stubble  land,  as  ploughing  for  crop  was  out  of 
the  question.  We  have  made  up  our  minds  the  next  time  we 
thrash  at  Baker's  to  keep  the  engine  half  a  day  or  so  longer  in 
order  to  steam-cut  as  much  chaff  as  we  can  stow  away.  This  will 
save  us  a  great  deal  of  time  and  labour  which  is  otherwise  lost. 


DECEMBER  439 

first  in  carting  the  hay  and  straw  up  to  the  machine  at  the  Home 
Farm,  and  secondly  in  carting  them  back  in  the  form  of  chaff. 

My  correspondence  to-day  contains  a  letter  from  that  rare 
person,  an  agricultural  enthusiast.  This  gentleman,  who  is  earning 
a  very  handsome  salary  in  an  office,  proposes  to  abandon  it  in  order 
to  commence  farming,  apparently  on  borrowed  capital.  And  what, 
my  reader,  do  you  suppose  has  led  him  to  his  resolve  ?  No,  not 
the  earlier  pages  of  a  certain  book,  but — the  teachings  ofCarlyle  and 
Ruskin.  If  a  study  of  these  leaders  of  thought  tends  to  such 
amiable  insanity,  which  I  confess  has  never  struck  me  in  reading 
them,  surely  so  far  as  the  young  are  concerned,  they  should  be 
placed  upon  the  Index  Expurgatorius. 

I  have  written  imploring  my  correspondent  to  forsake  these 
false  lights  and  stick  to  his  safe  and  gilded  stool,  but  if  he  declines 
to  listen  to  me,  I  can  only  hope  that  he  will  reap  the  reward  of 
his  pluck  and  succeed  in  this  difficult  adventure. 

Yesterday,  as  the  frost  continued,  we  were  obliged  to  give  up 
the  ploughing  and  take  to  the  C(\rting  of  manure.  While  I  was 
walking  along  a  hedgerow  I  saw  a  sight  that  I  have  never  seen 
before.  Suddenly,  about  fifty  yards  ahead  of  me,  a  cock  pheasant 
sprang  from  the  fence  and  lit  upon  the  ground  with  an  angry  crow, 
flicking  up  one  wing  in  a  very  curious  fashion.  Next  second  I 
learned  the  reason,  for  after  him  came  a  medium-sized  black  and 
white  cat,  which  evidently  had  tried  to  pounce  upon  him  in  the 
hedge.  On  seeing  it  the  pheasant  took  to  his  legs,  and  the  disap- 
pointed cat  slunk  back  to  shelter.  I  did  not  know  before  that  a 
cat  would  attack  so  powerful  a  bird. 

Royal  Duke,  the  prize  ox,  made  his  last  appearance  at 
Ditchingham  this  evening  in  the  shape  of  sirloin  of  beef.  The 
meeting  was  painful  to  me  who  had  known  him  from  a  calf,  but 
I  must  admit  that  he  was  excellent  eating.  Oh  !  what  carnivorae 
we  are  ! 

Yesterday  the  frost  broke,  with  the  result  that  this  Christmas 
has  not  the  beauty  of  that  of  last  year,  the  weather  being  dull  and 
mild,  towards  nightfall  softening  into  rain.    In  the  afternoon  I  went 


440  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

to  hear^  some  carols  sung  in  the  neighbouring  church  of  Broome. 
Afterwards  a  friend  of  mine,  who  lives  there,  gave  me  some  curious 
facts  illustrative  of  the  decrease  of  population  in  that  parish.  It  is 
his  habit  to  make  a  present  of  meat  at  Christmas  to  every  cottage 
inhabitant  of  Broome,  and  he  informed  me  that  the  difference  in 
its  cost  owing  to  the  shrinkage  of  population  between  this  year  and 
last  is  something  really  remarkable. 

I  wonder  what  must  be  the  result  of  this  exodus  if  it  continues  ? 
Will  the  most  of  the  land  have  to  be  put  down  in  temporary 
pasture  and  cultivated  more  roughly  ?  When  travelling  in  the 
United  States  of  America  I  have  seen  a  mule  and  a  cow  harnessed 
to  a  plough,  which  was  being  directed  by  a  woman  across  a  great 
expanse  of  plain  studded  with  tree  stumps,  and  roughly  fenced  with 
their  tops  dragged  mto  a  kind  of  zeriba.  Is  that  a  possible  future 
to  which  our  agriculture  may  look  forward  ?  And  if  most  of  the  land 
is  to  go  down  to  grass,  will  grass  continue  to  pay  ?  Heretofore 
the  graziers  have  had  the  best  of  it,  but  is  not  their  bad  time 
coming  ?  I  have  a  friend  connected  with  Argentina  who  tells  me 
that  a  frozen  meat  company  in  which  he  is  a  shareholder  is  able  to 
sell  excellent  chilled  mutton  at  twopence-halfpenny  the  pound. 

How  are  British  graziers  to  compete  against  mutton  at  two- 
pence-halfpenny a  pound  ?  Moreover,  as  appliances  improve  and 
rates  of  carriage  lessen,  will  it  not  come  in  at  a  still  lower  price  from 
a  country  of  endless  and  fertile  pastures,  where  they  pay  their  labour 
in  paper  and  depreciated  silver,  which  must  be  taken  at  face  value, 
and  are  paid  for  their  produce  in  good  British  gold  ?  The  prospect 
is  so  melancholy  that  I  do  not  care  to  study  it  further.  Perhaps 
the  world  may  fill  up,  or  perhaps  drought  and  locusts  will  take 
a  hand  in  the  game.  We  must  put  faith  in  our  old  friend— the 
Unexpected,  for  we  have  no  other.' 

December  26. — The  ordeal  is  over,  my  balance  sheets  are  made 
out  and  here  they  be  t 

*  See  Appendix  II. 


DECEMBER 


441 


Dr. 


DiTCHINGHAM  FARM 

Balance  Sheet,  Michaelmas, 


£    s.  d. 


To  Covenants,  Michaelmas 
1897    . 

,,  Horses. 

,,  Stock,  &c. 

,,  Implements 

,,  Corn 

,,  Covenants  (Ctirr)  . 

,,  Live  Stock  bought 

,,  Cake,  Seeds,  &c.  . 

,,  Ti-adesmen's  Bills 

, ,   Rent  paid  for  land  hired 
and       payments 
Rates  and  Tithe 

,,  Labour 

,,  Balance  available  for 
Rent  of  own  land  in 
hand,  Interest,  and 
Living  Expenses 


;  283 

4 

6 

.  187 

0 

0 

.  611 

2 

6 

.  145 

0 

0 

.  270 

8 

0 

.   lOI 

i.S 

6 

.  272 

12 

7 

.  157 

3 

6 

.  116 

13 

9 

.   215 

3 

10 

.  3S3 

16 

5 

333    5    2 


£3,088    5    9 


By 


M 


Covenants 

mas,  1898 
Horses . 
Stock,  &c. 
Implements 
Corn     . 
Live  Stock  sold 
Dairy  produce  sold 
Corn  sold 
Miscellaneous    pi 

sold  .        • 


Dr. 

To  Capital      . 
,,    Balance    from    Profit 
and  Loss  Account    . 
„    Profit,  1898 


1,300    o 

SP  13 
333    5 


Cash  Accou7it 
d. 


;^  2,173      18  9 


;^3.o88     5    9 
Cr. 


By  Valuation  at  Michael- 
mas, 1898,  Cove- 
nants, Horses,  Stock, 
Sheep,  &:c.,  Imple- 
ments, Corn       .        .    1,981  10    o 

,,  Cash  at  Bank      ,        ,       192    8    9 

^2,173  18    9 


Dr. 


Bedingham  Farm 
Balance  Sheet,  Michaelmas,  xi 


£  s.  d. 

To    Balance    brought  for- 
ward .         .         .         .  16  18  6 
,,  Covenants,  Michaelmas, 

1897  ....  130  16  o 
,,  Live  Stock  and  Imple- 
ments, 1897  .  .  335  9  o 
,,  Corn,  1897  .  .  .  189  12  o 
,,  Seeds  and  Corn  bought.  61  8  4 
,,  Live  Stock  bought  .  28  o  o 
,,  Tradesmen's  Bills,  &c.  43  16  4 
,,  Labour  .  .  .  133  5  6 
„   Balance    available    for 

Rent,  Interest,  &c.    .  89  10  2 

;^T,028  15  10 


Cr. 

£  s.    d. 
By    Covenants,     Michael- 
mas, 1898    .         .         .     157  12    o 

,,    Live  Stock  and  Imple- 
ments,      Michaelmas, 

1898    ....     346  10     o 

,,   Corn,  Michaelmas,  1898     176  5     o 

,,    Live  Stock  sold    .         .     118  9     o 

,,    Miscellaneous    produce 

sold     .         .         .         .       23  15     4 

„   Corn  sold     .        .        ,     206  4    6 


j^  1,028  IS  10 


442  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

Cash  Account. 


Dr. 

To  Capital 
,,  Profit,  il 


.^789 


Cr. 


By  Valuation  at  Michael- 
mas, 1898,  Live  Stock, 
Covenants,  Imple- 

ments, and  Corn         .     680    7 

,,    Cash  at  Bank        .         .       88  16 

,,   Mr.  Haggard's  account, 

1897    ,        ,        •        .       20    6 


^789  10    2 


I,  Robert  Thomas  Simpson,  of  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  in  the  County  of  Suffolk, 
Auctioneer  and  Valuer  (a  member  of  the  firm  of  Salter,  Simpson,  and 
Sons,  of  Attleboro',  Norfolk,  and  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  Suffolk),  hereby 
certify  that  on  the  3rd  day  of  November  last  I  made  Valuations  of  the 
Live  and  Dead  Farming  Stock,  Corn  and  Covenants,  upon  the 
Ditchingham  and  Bedingham  Farms  as  occupied  by  Henry  Rider 
Haggard,  Esq.,  the  amounts  of  such  Valuations  being  ;i^i,98i  \os. 
and  ;[^68o  ']s.  respectively,  and  that  to  the  best  of  my  judgment  such 
Valuations  are  fair  and  reasonable,  and  that  the  said  amounts  would 
have  been  realised  had  the  Farms  actually  passed  from  one  occupier 
to  another  at  that  date. 

As  Witness  my  hand  this  30th  day  of  December,  1898. 

R.  T.  Simpson. 


From  these  documents  it  will  be  seen  that  my  profit  on  the 
two  places  for  the  year  amounts  to  422/.  155.  4^.,  a  round  sum 
which  at  first  sight  is  enough  to  make  the  half-starved  farmer 
almost  delirious  with  joy.  After  the  first  shout  of  triumph,  how- 
ever, comes  reflection.  Among  my  readers  may  be  persons  who, 
in  search  of  new  experiences  of  life,  have  gone  upon  the  Boards  of 
public  companies.  If  so,  they  will  perhaps  have  discovered  that 
the  chief  advantages  accruing  to  the  director  appear  to  be— that 
he  enjoys  nights  sleepless  with  anxiety  and  works  hke  a  slave  for 
no  pay,  since  at  the  first  pinch  *  the  Board '  is  expected  to  jettison 
its  fees ;  and  that,  although  his  pocket  may  be  bare  of  gain  and 
his  conscience  white  as  the  snows  on  Hecla,  day  by  day  he  runs 
the  risk  of  seeing  his  conduct  held  up  to  the  British  public  in  some 
strange  and  unexpected  light.     For  in  practice  the  director  seems 


DECEMBER  443 

to  be  responsible  to  everybody  for  everything  that  happens,  whether 
he  is  to  blame  for  it  or  not. 

Yet  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  learned  from  this  fearsome 
occupation.  For  instance,  he  who  has  gone  through  that  mill 
will  know  how  futile  are  the  schemes  which  from  time  to  time 
have  been  advanced  of  carrying  out  agricultural  enterprises 
on  a  large  scale  by  means  of  companies.  I  cannot  conceive  a 
great  farm,  or  group  of  farms,  being  successfully  worked  by  a  Board 
of  directors,  meeting,  say,  once  a  month  or  a  fortnight,  to  pass 
resolutions  already  prepared  by  the  secretary  or  one  or  two  ruling 
spirits. 

Another  piece  of  knowledge  to  be  acquired  in  Board-rooms — - 
and  this  is  my  immediate  concern — is  that  you  can  call  nothing  a 
profit  until  all  previous  trading  losses  are  worked  off.  Of  course 
if  this  test  is  applied  to  my  farm  accounts,  the  profit  shown  for 
1898  vanishes  utterly  in  the  total  loss  which  I  have  incurred  since 
I  began  to  farm.  (See  pages  38-40.)  Moreover,  there  must  be 
deducted  from  this  sum  of  422/.  15^.  \d.  rent  on  say  250  acres  at 
i/.  an  acre,  and  interest  on  2,000/.  capital  at  4  per  cent,  amounting 
to  80/.  plus  management  expenses — let  us  say  20/.,  or  in  all 
350/.  This  leaves  a  total  of  72/.  15^.  4^.,  upon  which  the  farmer 
would  be  supposed  to  exist,  that  being  the  living  profit  left  after 
the  satisfaction  of  outgoings  and  charges.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  he  would  not  be  able  to  exist  thereon,  because  it  would 
scarcely  be  possible  to  draw  out  of  the  farm  account  every  farthing 
returned  as  profit.  To  begin  with,  it  is,  immediately  at  any 
rate,  available  only  to  the  extent  of  the  cash  balances  in  the  bank ; 
the  rest  being  represented  by  corn  taken  at  a  valuation  but  not 
yet  sold.  Even  when  it  is  sold  the  farmer  could  scarcely  put  the 
whole  proceeds  into  his  pocket  and  spend  them,  inasmuch  as  a 
certain  sum  must  be  left  to  meet  unexpected  expenses,  enough  to 
*  veer  and  haul  on,'  as  sailors  say.  Thus,  in  practice,  out  of  this  422/. 
shown  as  profit  I  shall  be  fortunate  if  300/.  can  be  transferred  to 
the  estate  account. 

It  will  be  seen  therefore,  that  after  all  the  gingerbread,  although 


444  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

it  is  composed  of  costly  materials  and  has  taken  long  abaking,  is 
not  so  very  richly  gilded. 

Such  as  it  is,  however,  I  am  grateful  for  it,  especially  as  I  find 
that  I  have  done  better  than  some  of  my  neighbours.  In  one 
case,  for  instance,  of  a  farm  a  little  larger  than  my  own,  where- 
as last  year  there  was  a  handsome  profit,  this  year  it  is  practically 
nil,  only  a  small  sum  being  available  towards  rent  and  interest. 

It  may  be  asked,  then,  how  I  have  managed  to  succeed  even 
to  this  moderate  extent — a  question  which  needs  some  lines  to 
answer.  Largely,  I  think  it  is  owing  to  the  advice  and  experience 
of  my  agent,  Mr.  Robert  Simpson,  and  to  the  constant  hard 
-work  and  attention  to  detail  of  Hood.  Also  I  may,  perhaps, 
claim  as  a  factor  in  the  result  my  own  interest  in  the  land  and  the 
daily  thought  and  care  I  give  to  everything  that  happens  in  or  about 
these  holdings.  So  much  for  personal  considerations,  which,  how- 
ever, would  help  little  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  soil  itself  is 
gathering  a  better  heart,  and  that  my  young  pastures  are  beginning 
to  come  into  value — that,  in  short,  I  am  reaping  the  result  of  the 
outlay  and  labour  of  past  years.  But  it  is  my  belief  that  without 
the  help  of  the  little  flock  of  ewes  all  this  would  have  availed 
nothing.  From  the  beginning  I  was  a  constant  advocate  of  trying 
a  few  sheep,  and  ever  since  those  sheep  were  bought,  about  three 
years  ago,  things  have  begun  to  improve.  The  reason  is  plain  ; 
comparatively  speaking  they  cost  little  to  keep,  for  they  will  devour 
anything  down  to  thistles  or  ivy  off  the  trees,  and  practically  much 
of  what  they  eat  would  otherwise  be  wasted.  Then  they  are 
productive  animals,  and,  as  old  Tusser  says,  *  good  lamb  is  v;orth 
gold.'  Lastly,  their  presence  is  of  extraordinary  benefit  to  the 
land,  especially  where  young  pastures  are  being  built  up  into 
sound  productive  meadows. 

One  swallow  does  not  make  a  summer,  and  one  fairly  successful 
year  at  farming  certainly  does  not  prove  that  this  industry  can  be 
made  remunerative.  Still,  it  does  go  to  confirm  me  in  the  opinion, 
which  I  think  I  expressed  in  the  beginning  of  this  book— rthat 
with  plenty  of  capital,  inexhaustible  patience,  a  real  love  of  the 


DECEMBER  445 

thing,  and  the  exercise  of  about  as  much  general  intelligence  as 
would  be  necessary  to  move  an  army  corps  up  the  Nile,  a 
moderate  rent,  an  interest  on  the  money  invested,  and  possibly  a 
small  living  profit,  if  the  labour  and  other  conditions  are  fairly 
favourable,  and  in  the  absence  of  any  special  ill-luck  or  calamity, 
may  still  be  wrung  out  of  the  land  in  our  Eastern  Counties. 

That  is  my  view  of  the  matter  after  a  good  many  years  of 
experience,  and  I  trust  that  others  better  qualified  to  judge  may 
not  think  it  misleading  or  too  sanguine.  This,  if  I  live  and 
continue  to  farm,  I  suppose  I  shall  learn  in  the  future,  but  I 
hope  even  by  adhering  strictly  to  my  plan  of  lessening  the  corn 
acreage  in  every  possible  way,  cultivating  soundly,  and  increasing 
the  number  and  the  quality  of  the  stock  to  the  utmost  limit  that  we 
can  carry,  to  do  somewhat  better  in  future  years. 

But  even  if  I  succeed  in  this  endeavour,  I  fear  that  it  will  not 
alter  my  estimate  as  to  the  general  position  of  the  farming  interest  in 
the  Eastern  Counties.  On  every  side  we  hear  new  complaints, 
such  as  those  that  Mr.  Clare  Sewell  Read  utters  in  his  agricultural 
summaries  and  elsewhere ;  whereof  I  quote  a  specimen  extracted 
from  a  letter  written  by  him  to  the  Tt?nes,  as  it  seems  to  me  to 
sum  up  the  present  situation  in  a  few  sentences.  '  We  have  to 
pay  more  for  labour,  manures,  and  feeding  stuffs.  Yet  we  are 
selling  the  best  wheat  England  ever  produced  at  255'.  per 
quarter,  wool  has  reached  the  lowest  price  ever  recorded,  and, 
notwithstanding  the  poor  root  crop,  beef  hardly  averages  6d. 
per  lb.  But  there  is  another  feature  of  the  farming  outlook 
which  is  very  sad  to  contemplate,  and  that  is  the  decreasing 
influence  agriculture  has  upon  Parliament  or  even  with  a  friendly 
Administration.  .  .  ,  We  might  possibly  have  been  spared  the 
melancholy  spectacle  of  the  President  of  our  Board  of  Agriculture 
defending  and  upholding  one  of  the  greatest  frauds  upon  British 
produce  by  granting  a  legal  status  to  colouring  margarine  to 
represent  butter.' 

I  know  that  this  much  respected  gentleman  and  great  agricul- 
tural authority  has  been  accused  of  taking  too  gloomy  a  view  ;  he  has 


446  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

even  been  called  '  Jeremiah/  Yet  if  a  very  minor  prophet  may 
venture  an  opinion,  I  must  say  that  I  agree  with  almost  every 
inspired  wail  which  he  has  uttered.  Indeed,  short  of  the  entire 
stoppage  of  the  industry,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  things  could 
change  greatly  for  the  worse. 

In  these  parts,  for  instance,  as  a  fruit  of  this  dreadful  depression, 
the  labourers  are  melting  away,  and,  practically,  the  old  stamp  of 
tenant  farmer  is  ceasing  to  exist.  In  his  place  has  arisen  a  new  style 
of  person,  who,  unless  the  land  be  in  tip-top  condition,  when  he 
may  venture  on  a  four  years'  lease,  will  only  farm  from  year  to 
year.  I  say  '  farm,'  but  in  many  cases  it  cannot  be  called  farming, 
for,  without  capital,  without  sufficient  stock,  without  insight  and  the 
determination  to  make  that  spot  a  home  for  years  and  by  skill  and 
adaptability  to  force  the  land  to  yield  a  living,  how  can  a  man 
farm  in  such  times  as  these  ?  He  had  better  give  it  up  and  take 
to  tax-collecting,  after  the  shrewd  example  of  an  ex-tenant  of  my 
own. 

According  to  the  Agricultural  Summary  in  to-day's  TtmeSy 
which  is  admirably  done,  this  view— that  it  would  be  better  to  give 
it  up — seems  to  have  been  largely  shared  throughout  the  king- 
dom. Thus  I  find  it  stated  there  that  this  year  76,079  acres  have 
been  entirely  lost  from  the  previous  cultivated  area,  as  against  a 
loss  of  13,546  acres  in  1897.  Further,  this  cheerful  fact  is  recorded 
— that  in  1898  the  aggregate  area  of  all  corn  crops,  cereal  and  pulse 
together,  is  absolutely  the  lowest  on  record.  This  is  a  situation 
on  which  it  is  quite  unnecessary  for  me  to  comment :  it  speaks  for 
Itself. 

The  extraordinary  mildness  of  the  season  continues.  This  after- 
noon I  saw  a  perfect  red  rose — not  one  of  the  very  hardy  varieties — 
in  bloom  upon  the  garden  wall.  It  is  curious  to  find  a  flower  that 
would  have  done  no  disgrace  to  June  unfolding  its  petals  in  the 
death  days  of  December. 

December  27. — To-day  a  fierce  gale  is  blowing  from  the  sou'- 
west,   and   against   it — having   business    there — I    struggled    to 


DECEMBER  447 

Kessingland,  accomplishing  most  of  the  journey  upon  a  bicycle. 
The  ride  from  Lowestoft,  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  wind,  was  the 
hardest  I  have  ever  undertaken.  Very  frequently,  indeed,  I  was 
obliged  to  dismount  and  push  behind,  a  duty  that  was  not  made  more 
entertaining  by  the  vision  of  a  curate,  cigarette  in  mouth,  sailing  past 
me  in  the  opposite  direction,  his  feet  reposing  on  the  rests.  I 
wonder  why  it  is,  by  the  way,  that  most  curates  and  many  clergymen 
ride  bicycles  so  madly  ?  Thrice  have  I  nearly  fallen  a  victim  to  their 
rage — the  last  time,  indeed,  I  just  escaped  being  run  down  by  a 
coasting  covey  of  six  of  them  at  once. 

At  length  I  turned  down  the  lane  which  leads  to  Cliff  Grange, 
the  very  easternmost  dwelling,  1  suppose,  in  the  whole  kingdom, 
and  as  the  wind  was  now  upon  my  side,  got  along  much  better, 
until  a  sudden  and  ferocious  gust  blew  me  and  the  bicycle  several 
yards  into  a  ploughed  field.  The  sight  from  the  cliff  was  very 
grand— a  sullen,  tempest-fretted  sea  raging  beneath  a  low  and 
sullen  sky.  But  a  gale  from  the  sou'-west  is  not  that  which  does 
damage  on  the  eastern  coast — it  is  the  nor'-easter  that  we  dread, 
especially  if  it  be  accompanied  by  very  high  tides.  This  was  what 
happened  in  the  great  storm  of  last  December,  when  the  tide  and 
the  sea  rose  higher  than  they  are  believed  to  have  done  for  the 
best  part  of  a  century.  The  damage  at  Lowestoft,  Southwold, 
Pakefield,  &c.,  was  enormous,  and  as  I  had  recently  come  into 
possession  of  this  Kessingland  property,  my  slate  of  mind  until 
I  heard  that  it  had  taken  no  harm  can  be  imagined.  I  think, 
however,  that  if  our  cliff  will  resist  the  worst  onslaught  of  two 
generations,  for  the  future  we  may  sleep  at  ease.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  indeed,  the  beach  at  Kessingland  is  increasing  in  width ; 
in  front  of  my  house  it  has  risen  more  than  five  feet  in  height 
during  a  single  year.  This  is  consoling,  but  he  who  has  to 
deal  with  the  sea  can  never  be  quite  certain  of  anything.  If 
old  Ocean  wishes  to  have  a  thing  he  will  take  it,  and  at  present  he 
is  taking  Southwold  and  Pakefield,  with  other  places ;  also  large 
stretches  of  marshland  are  being  ruined  by  the  continual  advance 
of  the  tide  along  the  rivers. 


448  .  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

But  the  inhabitants  of  East  Anglia  still  do  little  or  nothing — or 
at  least  nothing  concerted.  Every  man  for  himself  is  the  cry,  and 
let  the  sea  take  the  rest. 

Even  the  December  gale,  however,  so  far  as  violence  is  concerned, 
was  but  a  small  thing  compared  to  the  tempest  of  last  March  three 
years.  That  frightful  storm  came  up  one  Sunday  afternoon  from  the 
nor'-west,  and  when  the  full  fury  of  it  struck  this  house,  which  is  an 
exceedingly  solid  building,  the  whole  fabric  rocked  and  tottered 
till  I  feared  lest  the  great  mass  of  chimneys  should  fall  through 
the  roof.  Everywhere  trees  were  going  down.  They  just  bowed 
and  vanished.  One  instant  they  were  standing,  the  next  they 
were  gone.  In  the  worst  of  the  gale  I  went  out  and  struggled  into 
Bungay.  Out  of  the  front  gate  I  dared  not  go  because  of  the 
rocking  elms,  fear  of  which  forced  some  of  the  Hood  family  in  the 
farm  which  stands  by  it  to  take  refuge  among  the  cowsheds,  so  I 
was  obliged  to  break  my  way  to  the  road  through  the  lawn  fence. 
The  streets  of  Bungay  were  an  extraordinary  sight,  being  strewn 
with  broken  tiles  and  chimney-pots,  much  as  though  the  place  had 
been  bombarded,  and  as  I  walked  I  saw  one  woman  lifted  quite 
off  her  legs  by  the  wind  and  thrown  into  the  middle  of  the  road. 

All  of  this,  however,  though  our  damage  was  great  enough, 
seemed  as  nothing  to  what  happened  in  East  Norfolk  and  in  other 
parts  of  the  county  where  the  soil  is  light.  There  the  trees  fell 
literally  by  the  ten  thousand,  and  such  a  sight  as  the  woods  presented 
after  the  hurricane  was  done  with  I  never  before  witnessed.  In 
some  instances  they  were  perfectly  flat — a  tangled  heap  of  boughs 
and  timber,  and  here  and  there,  standing  above  the  debris,  a 
deep-rooted  oak  with  the  top  twisted  out  of  it,  or  a  great  Scotch 
fir  snapped  in  two  like  a  carrot.  A  friend  told  me  that  he  stood 
in  the  middle  of  a  little  park  and  watched  the  surrounding  woods 
go  down,  just  as  though  they  were  being  pressed  to  the  earth  by 
the  power  of  some  mighty  hand.  First  the  outer  trees  would  fall, 
then  hne  by  line  those  that  stood  within  till  little  or  nothing  was 
left.  And  the  most  curious  feature  of  this  marvellous  spectacle 
was  that  no  noise  could  be  heard.     Although  forests  were  crashing 


DECEMBER  449 

to  the  earth  all  about,  no  sound  reached  the  ears  of  the  watcher 
except  the  sound  of  that  howling  tempest. 

Only  one  other  such  gale  do  I  remember — at  any  rate  in  this 
country.  It  happened,  I  think,  in  the  year  1881,  when  I  was 
coming  home  from  Africa  in  a  disabled  ship.  Luckily  we  won 
shelter  in  the  mouth  of  the  Thames  before  it  burst  j  and  there  we 
lay,  for  we  could  not  go  up  the  river  because  jnost  of  the  water 
was  blown  out  of  its  bed.  Two  powerful  tugs  tried  to  get  our  head 
round,  and  I  saw  one  of  them  caught  by  the  wind  and  dashed 
into  our  side  as  though  it  were  but  a  little  sailing-boat.  Also  I 
saw  ships  one  after  another  carried  from  their  moorings,  and 
other  things  too  long  to  mention. 

Here,  however,  is  a  little  story  connected  with  that  gale  which 
it  is,  perhaps,  worth  while  to  preserve.  Shortly  after  it  my 
late  father  accompanied  me  to  North  Walsham  to  visit  some 
property  in  that  town  which  belongs  to  this  estate.  After  our 
business  was  completed  he  expressed  a  wish  to  look  over  the 
grammar  school,  which  he  had  not  seen  since  he  was  a  scholar 
there  as  a  little  boy  some  sixty  years  before.  By  the  wall  of  the 
playground  grew  a  line  of  poplar-trees  which  the  gale  I  have  spoken 
of  had  thrown  down,  so  that  they  lay  upon  the  wall,  whereof 
all  the  upper  part  was  destroyed  by  their  weight.  Looking  at 
this  curious  sight  brought  to  my  father's  mind  the  recollection 
that  there  was  a  brick  in  this  wall  upon  which  Nelson,  who  was 
also  a  scholar  at  North  Walsham,  had  cut  his  initials.  He  asked 
those  who  were  showing  us  over  the  school  about  this  brick,  but 
no  one  seemed  to  know  anything  of  it — indeed,  I  fancy  that  since 
his  time  the  tradition  of  the  thing  had  died  away.  But  the  more 
he  thought  of  it  the  more  positive  he  became  of  its  existence, 
and  as  he  expressed  a  belief  that  he  could  find  it,  a  lantern  was 
brought — for  the  autumn  evening  had  now  closed  in — by  the  light 
of  which  he  began  to  search  the  wall.  And  there,  certainly, 
he  found  the  brick  with  the  weatherworn  initials  H.  N.  cut  upon 
its  face.  Curiously  enough,  although  this  particular  brick  was  quite 
uninjured,  one  of  the  fallen  trees  that  rested  on  the  wall  had  ground 

G  G 


450  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

everything  above  it  to  powder.     I  believe  that  it  has  now  been 
taken  from  its  place  and  is  preserved  in  the  schoolhouse. 

I  suppose  that  there  are  not  very  many  people  living  who  have 
known  a  person  who  knew  Lady  Hamilton,  but  as  it  chances  I 
am  one  of  them.  In  or  about  the  year  1804,  Mrs.  Bolton,  who 
was  Nelson's  sister,  and  her  husband  hired  Bradenham,  my 
brother's  house,  where  I  was  born,  and  here  Lady  Hamilton  used 
to  visit  them.  Indeed,  there  is  a  large  cupboard  in  the  Red  Room 
that  was  dedicated  to  her  dresses,  whereof  the  exceeding 
splendours  are  still  recorded  in  the  traditions  of  the  village.  At 
that  time  a  man  of  the  name  of  Canham,  whom  I  knew  well  in 
his  age,  was  page  boy  at  the  Hall,  and  more  than  once  has  he 
talked  to  me  of  Horatia  and  Lady  Hamilton,  the  former  of  whom 
he  described  as  a  *  white  little  slip  of  a  thing.'  I  asked  him  also 
what  Lady  Hamilton  was  like.  *  Oh,'  he  replied,  in  the  vigorous 
Norfolk  vernacular,  *she  wor  a  rare  fine  opstanding  .  .  .  she 
wor.'  The  missing  word  is  scarcely  suited  to  this  page  polite, 
but  may  easily  be  guessed.  In  effect  it  is  a  curious  piece  of  con- 
temporary criticism  from  a  source  likely  to  be  unprejudiced  if  out- 
spoken. 

After  Nelson's  death  all  his  sea-going  belongings  were  sent  to 
Bradenham ;  a  piece  of  mahogany  furniture  from  his  cabin  still 
stands  in  one  of  the  bedrooms.  Also  it  was  Canham's  duty  from 
time  to  time  to  take  out  the  coat  in  which  he  was  killed  at 
Trafalgar  and  to  air  it  on  the  lavender  bushes  that  grow  by  the 
kitchen  garden  railings. 

Only  the  other  day  I  came  across  a  curious  souvenir  of 
Nelson.  On  his  death  a  patriotic  club  was  founded  at  Norwich 
in  memory  of  him,  and  called  the  Nelson  Club.  This  Club,  after 
an  existence  of  about  fifty  years,  finally  became  extinct,  or  was 
merged  into  the  present  Norfolk  Club ;  the  last  member  of  it,  the 
Rev.  Henry  Lombe  of  Bylaugh,  dying  less  than  a  year  ago.  It 
was  a  dining  club,  and  owned  two  very  curious  pewter  platters, 
which  passed  into  my  possession  through  the  agency  of  that  pedlar 
whom  I  have  mentioned  upon  an  earlier  page.     First,  I  bought 


DECEMBER  451 

one,  then  the  other  was  traced  and  obtained  from  London,  where 
it  had  descended  in  a  different  branch  of  the  vendor's  family. 

These  platters,  which  must  have  served  the  purpose  of  meat 
dishes,  measure  twenty  inches  in  diameter,  and  about  sixty-two  in 
circumference.  Round  their  rims  are  cut  in  bold  letters,  Copenhagen^ 
The  Nile^  Trafalgar  of  glorious  memory^  the  arms  of  Norwich,  and 
the  date  1806.  In  their  centres  appear  the  full  armorial  bearings 
of  Nelson,  his  motto  Palmam  qui  meruit  fer at ^  and  an  inscription, 
The  Nelson  Club. 

December  28. — The  gale  has  been  followed  by  a  morning  that 
was  indeed  lovely.  Against  a  vast  dome  of  tender  blue  the  naked 
trees  were  outlined  with  a  wonderful  clearness,  while  the  whole 
landscape  lay  steeped  in  a  bath  of  sunshine.  Indeed,  the  scene  when 
I  walked  through  it  this  forenoon  might  almost  have  been  such 
as  is  common  on  an  autumn  evening,  for  it  was  pervaded  by  the 
same  gentle  light,  and  so  low  lay  the  sun  that  the  shadows  of  the 
trees  stretched  away  upon  the  grass,  as  in  the  summer  at  the 
death  of  day  shadows  are  wont  to  do.  On  the  purple,  new-turned 
plough  of  the  fourteen-acre  at  Baker's  were  feeding  many  glossy- 
plumaged  rooks,  and  with  them  a  flock  of  green-backed  plover, 
driven  inland  by  the  rough  weather.  In  that  light  these  peewits 
were  almost  invisible  upon  the  plough,  but  when  by  some  unseen 
disturber  they  were  frightened  suddenly  from  the  ground,  the  white 
of  their  under-wings  and  breasts  shone  in  the  sun's  rays  like  discs 
of  polished  metal.  Then  down  they  went,  and  once  more  dis- 
appeared. Taking  off  my  hat  I  waved,  it,  which  startled  them 
in  good  earnest,  for  they  mounted  high  into  the  air  and 
circled  round  me  in  wide  sweeps,  looking  most  beautiful  in  the 
sunshine,  till,  fearing  lest  I  should  scare  them  quite  away,  I 
hastened  to  another  field. 

How  extraordinary  sweet  and  wholesome  is  the  odour  of 
fresh  ploughed  earth  !  To  my  mind  there  are  few  fragrances  so 
pleasant.  Yet  this  is  only  the  case  after  man  has  cultivated  the 
same  soil  for  many  years,  for,  if  my  recollection  is  right,  virgin 


452  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

land  when  broken  up  smells  somewhat  sour.  Certainly  it  is 
most  unwholesome ;  witness  the  fevers  contracted  by  white  men 
employed  in  cutting  canals  and  railways  in  Africa  and  other 
semi-tropical  places. 

Already  we  have  been  obliged  to  begin  upon  our  beet,  mixing 
them  for  the  food  of  the  seven  young  oxen  at  Baker's  with  the  few 
remaining  swedes,  as  to  put  cattle  upon  a  sudden  diet  of  lush 
mangolds  would  be  too  violent  a  change.  Owing  to  the  drought 
swedes  are  very  scarce  this  year ;  indeed,  my  experience  of  them 
upon  our  soil  is  that  they  are  the  most  uncertain  of  all  crops. 
Very  generally  they  suffer  from  mildew,  or  stunt  of  one  kind  and 
another,  especially  in  such  dry  seasons  as  we  have  experienced  of 
late.  I  should  like  to  grow  more  kohl-rabi,  a  most  valuable  root, 
but  Hood  is  of  opinion  that  this  Ditchingham  land  is  too  light 
for  the  needs  of  that  vegetable.  White  turnips  also,  he  thinks, 
have  not  more  than  half  the  feeding  value  of  swedes.  Yet  with 
humility  I  venture  to  believe  that  it  would  be  wise  to  lessen  the 
acreage  of  this  crop  as  much  as  possible. 

December  29. — This  has  been  a  most  miserable  day,  very  wet 
and  windy,  indeed  one  of  the  darkest  of  the  dying  year.  Through- 
out its  gloomy  hours,  however,  two  ploughs  have  been  going  upon 
the  light  glebe  land,  although,  as  Peachey  pointed  out,  such  soil, 
on  account  of  the  gravel  in  it,  is  apt  to  set  very  hard  if  turned  up 
in  the  wet.  In  the  present  case,  however,  as  we  are  not  ploughing 
for  crop,  this  does  not  greatly  matter. 

To  the  observer  standing  on  the  crest  of  the  rise  by  the 
corner  of  the  cemetery — a  fitting  spot  for  such  a  study — the  scene, 
as  it  appeared  beneath  the  pall  of  slaty  flying  scud  this  mornings 
was  one  of  singular  desolation.  In  the  far  background,  piercing 
the  wreaths  of  vapour  like  some  lone  beacon  upon  a  dreary  coast, 
stood  the  tower  of  Broome  church,  and  to  the  left  of  it,  but 
nearer,  the  gaunt  framework  of  a  thatchless,  ruined  barn.  Below 
this  skeleton  came  lines  of  dim  elms,  now  hidden  and  now 
revealed  as  the  driving  wrack  of  rain  lifted  or  closed  in  about 


t>ECEMBER  453 

them.  Near  at  hand,  forming  the  dip  of  a  little  valley,  lay  the 
brook  pasture,  looking  blue  rather  than  green  in  colour  beneath 
the  leaden  clouds,  and  beyond  it,  right  up  to  the  sombre  mass  of 
Tindale  Wood,  stretch  upon  stretch  of  rusty  stubble  and  sullen 
plough. 

Let  the  eye  roam  where  it  would,  there  was  but  one  cheerful 
thing  at  hand  to  catch  it,  the  garlands  of  bright  ivy  clinging  to 
the  hedgerow  pollards,  and  at  times  in  the  thickest  of  the  rain- 
storms even  these  grew  black.  Then,  to  complete  the  picture, 
patient  and  solemn,  the  ploughmen  wrapped  in  their  thick 
capes,  toiled  forward  side  by  side,  heedless  of  the  lashing  sleet, 
heedless  of  the  savage  wind ;  up  and  down,  continually  up  and 
down  the  grey  length  of  field,  with  the  striving  horses  before 
them  and  the  complaining  ploughs  beneath  their  hands,  very 
embodiments  indeed  of  the  dignity  and  the  doom  of  labour. 

December  31. — Yesterday  was  a  day  of  sharp  sleet-storms, 
varied  by  intervals  of  sunshine,  through  which  our  ploughing 
went  on  as  usual  \  but  the  dawn  this  morning,  the  last  of  the 
year,  was  also,  I  think,  the  most  beautiful.  A  white  rime  of  frost 
covered  the  ground,  for  at  night  it  froze  sharply,  while  the  air 
was  so  quiet  and  windless  that  no  twig  even  stirred  upon  the 
trees.  One  great  loveliness  lay  upon  the  eastern  sky,  as  though 
there  some  vast  and  wondrous  flower  was  bursting  into  bloom — 
a  perfect  but  ever-changing  colour  scheme  of  pink  and  yellow  laid 
upon  a  groundwork  of  pale  and  tender  greens  and  broken  into 
lines  and  petals  by  streaks  of  fire  pouring  upwards  from  the  rim  of 
the  appearing  sun.  Strange  to  say,  however,  over  against  this  glory, 
as  though  at  war  with  it,  lay  an  ominous  and  gloomy  sky,  which, 
while  the  sun  rose,  invaded  and  conquered  the  splendour  in  the 
east,  till  the  whole  heaven  grew  dark  and  pregnant  with  rain  or 
snow  to  come. 

To  study  such  a  sight  is  to  understand  the  hopelessness  of  art. 
This  morning's  sunrise  would  have  been  enough  to  drive  a 
painter  mad  with  envy  and  despair. 


454  A   FARMER'S    YEAR 

I  hear  that  the  tithe  rent-charge  for  1899  is  down  to  68/.  2J., 
a  further  drop  on  last  year's  averages.  The  poor  parsons — how 
will  they  -manage  to  live,  I  wonder?  I  wonder  also  if  it  has 
ever  struck  any  one  how  intimate  is  the  link  between  the  fall 
of  agriculture  and  the  welfare  of  religion  in  this  country, 
or  at  least  of  that  form  of  it  which  is  represented  by  the 
Church  of  England.  It  is  undoubtedly  to  the  advantage  of  his 
parish  that  a  clergyman  should  be  able  to  keep  up  a  modest 
position;  that  he  should  not  at  least  be  notoriously  struggling 
with  debts  and  visibly  out  at  elbows.  Yet  in  eight  cases  out  of 
ten  how  is  he  to  do  so  in  these  days,  with  the  rates  mounting 
higher  and  higher,  the  demands  upon  him  increasing,  as  they 
do  generally  while  time  goes  on,  and  with  an  income  that  lessens 
like  a  peau  de  chagrin  ?  If  a  man  has  a  thousand  a  year,  and  it 
comes  down  to  seven  hundred,  the  pinch  is  perceptible,  but  if  he 
has  three  hundred  a  year,  which  shrinks  to  under  two  or  less,  it  is 
overwhelming,  and  there  are  very  many  benefices  in  these  counties 
that  do  not  return  300/.  clear  per  annum.  Also  the  losses  of 
country  clergymen  in  these  days  are  not  confined  to  the  wasting 
of  their  tithe.  In  the  majority  of  cases  the  glebe  land  is  either 
thrown  on  to  their  hands  or  must  be  re-let  at  a  great  reduction. 
So  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  average  country  rector  will  begin 
the  new  year  with  prospects  so  rosy  as  this  morning's  daybreak. 

Later  in  the  day  the  omen  of  a  red  dawn  was  fulfilled, 
for  the  rain  came  down  in  torrents,  but  through  it  all  the  ploughs 
ploughed  on.  With  them,  as  the  steaming  horses  are  unyoked, 
leaving  their  sharp  shares  buried  in  the  half-turned  furrow,  ends  my 
record  of  farming  and  thinking  in  1 898. 

On  the  whole  it  has  been  a  favourable  year  so  far  as  climatic 
conditions  are  concerned.  Last  winter  was  mild  and  open,  the 
spring  very  late,  cold,  and  wet,  but  leading  us  on  to  an  excellent 
haysel ;  the  harvest,  one  of  the  most  splendid  times  that  has 
happened  within  the  memory  of  man.  After  that  came  drought, 
which  almost  destroyed  the  swede  crop,  although  the  mangolds 
stood  it  marvellously.     At  last  this  broke,  and  thenceforward  the 


DECEMBER  455 

weather  has  been  all  that  could  be  desired,  enabling  us  to  get 
more  forward  with  the  ploughing  than  might  have  been  expected. 
Such  of  next  year's  crops  as  are  above  the  ground,  wheat,  winter 
beans,  tares,  &c.,  all  look  well  and  vigorous,  but  a  spell  of  frost 
would  now  be  welcome  if  only  to  kill  the  grubs  and  make  the 
heavy  lands  tender  and  friable.  Perhaps  we  shall  have  it  yet^ 
since  even  in  my  own  day  the  English  climate  has  changed 
very  greatly — now  it  is  common  for  autumn  to  stretch  almost  up 
to  Christmas,  while  winter  often  prevails  from  February  to  June. 

But  if  the  difficulties  and  variableness  of  our  weather  and 
climate  were  all  which  he  had  to  face,  the  farmer  might  wish  his 
neighbour  a  happy  New  Year  after  church  to-morrow  with  a  reason- 
able belief  that,  the  decrees  of  Fate  apart,  his  invocation  would  be 
fulfilled.  The  facts,  however,  point  another  way,  for  it  cannot  be 
denied  that,  taking  the  country  through,  the  farming  outlook  has 
seldom  been  more  gloomy  than  it  will  be  at  the  beginning  of 
1899.  Wheat,  our  staple  product,  has  fallen  again  to  a  figure  at 
which  it  is  not  remunerative  to  grow ;  meat  does  not,  and  some 
think  will  not  rise,  while  wool  is,  I  understand,  lower  in  price 
than  it  has  ever  been  before.^  What  then  is  the  farmer  to  do  and 
where  is  he  to  turn  for  aid  ?  Protection,  at  any  rate  upon  wheat 
and  meat,  is  at  present  but  a  dream,  and  he  will  be  wise  if  he 
dismisses  the  hope  of  it  from  his  mind.  A  bounty  on  corn  might 
help,  but  will  there  ever  be  a  bounty  unless  some  great  war  has 
first  taught  the  people  how  necessary  it  is  that  a  certain  proportion 
of  our  acreage  should  be  kept  under  wheat  ?     I  doubt  it. 

What  remains  then  ?  In  addition  to  considerable  and  very 
necessary  changes  of  the  system  and  subject  matter  of  elementary 
education  in  country  districts  I  can  only  suggest :  help  from  the 
State  in  the  shape  of  (i)  monetary  aid  advanced  on  the  security  of 
the  property  to  persons  of  approved  character  who  wish  to  purchase 
small  holdings,  thus  fostering  the  growth  of  a  new  yeoman  class, 

^  Since  the  above  was  written,  owing  to  a  shortage,  probably  temporary, 
of  the  foreign  s'jpply,  meat  has  risen  a  little,  while  corn  has  fallen  still  further 
in  price. — April  1899. 


456  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

(2)  the  removal  or  remission  of  the  unjust  land  tax,  (3)  the 
equalisation  of  the  rating  and  other  burdens  upon  real  and 
personal  property,  and  (4)  the  passing  of  a  thorough-going  and 
really  comprehensive  Act  inflicting  severe  penalties  upon  dishonest 
traders  who,  amongst  other  frauds,  sell  foreign  meat  for  British, 
and  colour  the  fat  of  animals  and  kindred  substances  in  such  a  way 
that  the  public  buy  them  believing  them  to  be  butter.  That  some 
adequate  and  necessary  legislation  of  this  sort  has  not  been  enacted 
long  ago  is,  as  many  of  us  think,  nothing  less  than  a  scandal. 
Also,  if  it  is  not  so  already,  it  should  be  made  illegal  for  the 
keepers  of  restaurants  and  hotels,  when  asked  for  butter  and  paid 
for  butter,  in  its  place,  as  they  often  do,  knowingly  to  supply 
margarine  to  their  customers ;  and  if  it  is  so  already,  then  the  law 
should  be  enforced.  But  what  hope  is  there  of  most  of  these 
reforms?    Very  little  I  imagine.^ 

The  house  of  the  agricultural  interest  is  a  house  divided 
against  itself,  therefore  it  cannot  stand,  and  those  who  dwell 
in  it  are  a  feeble  and  a  frightened  folk.  Moreover,  owners  of 
land  and  tenants  of  land  muster  but  a  few  votes  between  them, 
whereas  the  labourers,  who  really  hold  the  balance  of  political 

'  As  these  proofs  leave  their  author's  hands  the  Sale  of  Food  and  Drugs 
Bill  is  passing  through  the  report  stage  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and,  pre- 
sumably, will  soon  be  law.  Such  as  it  is  agriculturists  will  accept  it  with 
gratitude,  and  in  the  pious  hope  that  it  may  not  become  a  dead-letter  through  a 
lack  of  the  enforcement  of  its  provisions,  especially,  as  I  trust  may  be  the  case, 
if  it  makes  it  punishable  to  palm  off  foreign  meat  as  British  fed  and  provides 
machinery  to  detect  the  fraud.  It  docs  seem  lamentable,  however,  that  this 
opportunity  was  not  taken  to  make  it  illegal  to  colour  margarine  to  repre- 
sent butter.  Such  colouring  can  have  but  one  object.  To  urge  that  under 
the  law  margarine  cannot  be  sold  as  butter  scarcely  touches  the  point, 
since  in  its  tinted  condition  it  can  be,  and  is,  supplied  to  the  customers  of 
eating-places  who  are  paying  for  butter  and  would  not,  for  the  most  part, 
knowingly  consume  margarine.  In  its  natural,  uncoloured  condition  this 
and  other  tricks  would  be  impossible,  and  it  is  no  consolation  to  the  unwil- 
ling absorber  of  margarine  to  be  told  that  the  dishonest  person  who  passes 
the  stuff  off  on  him  as  butter  bought  it  from  a  tub  labelled  Margarine,  and 
not  from  one  labelled  Butter.  Nor  is  it  any  consolation  to  the  British  farmer, 
whose  produce  is  thus  exposed  to  a  competition  manifestly  unfair. 


DECEMBER  457 

power,  only  too  often  believe  that  salvation  lies  in  attacking  what 
they  are  taught  to  consider  the  interests  of  the  farmer,  the  parson 
and  the  squire,  rather  than  in  insisting  that  the  ancient  industry 
of  British  agriculture,  by  which  their  forefathers  have  lived  for 
centuries,  should  at  least  receive  fair  treatment  in  its  struggle  for 
existence.  They  forget — speaking  broadly— that  all  those  who 
live  by  the  land  must  swim  or  sink  together,  that  if  the  farmer 
falls  the  landlord  will  fall,  and  if  the  landlord  falls  the  labourer 
must  follow  him,  since  under  our  system  and  customs,  if  one 
cannot  wring  a  living  from  the  soil  neither  can  the  others,  so 
that  it  becomes  almost  valueless  to  all.  The  worth  of  land 
depends  fundamentally  upon  the  value  of  what  it  will  produce, 
and  if,  from  any  given  causes,  its  cultivation  ceases  to  be  re- 
munerative, then  all  who  took  a  return  from  the  fields,  whether  in 
the  shape  of  rent  or  crops  or  wages,  must  go  empty  away.  To 
suppose  if  the  landlord  were  abolished  (which  is  impossible  under 
any  scheme  of  tenure  that  I  can  conceive,  since  it  can  scarcely  be 
made  unlawful  for  an  individual,  a  corporation,  or  the  State  to  own 
and  hire  out  land)  that  the  others  concerned  would  necessarily 
flourish  is  a  pure  fallacy,  as  many  a  person  has  found  out  who 
farms  his  estate,  and  thus  becomes  his  own  landlord.  Putting 
aside  other  questions  that  arise — capital  is  necessary,  and  profits 
can  scarcely  be  cut  so  fine. 

Well,  these  be  great  matters,  which  I  suppose  no  words  of  mine 
may  move  for  good  or  ill.  A  still  greater  matter  is  the  desertion 
of  the  land  by  the  labourer.  To  my  mind,  under  present  condi- 
tions which  make  any  considerable  rise  in  wages  impossible,  that 
problem  can  only  be  solved  by  giving  to  the  peasant,  through 
State  aid  or  otherwise,  the  opportunity  of  transforming  himself  into  a 
small  landowner,  should  he  desire  to  do  so,  and  thus  interesting 
him  permanently  in  the  soil  as  one  of  its  proprietors.  But  to  own 
acres  is  useless  unless  their  produce  can  be  disposed  of  at  a  living 
profit,  which  nowadays,  in  many  instances,  at  any  rate  in  our 
Eastern  counties,  is  often  difficult,  if  not  impossible.  Will  steps 
ever  be  taken  sufficient  to  bring  the  people  back  upon  the  land  j  and 


45^  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

to  mitigate  the  severity  of  the  economic  and  other  circumstances 
which  afflict  country  dwellers  in  Great  Britain  to  such  a  reasonable 
extent  that  those  who  are  fit  and  industrious  can  once  more  be 
enabled  to  live  in  comfort  from  its  fruits  ?  In  this  question  with 
its  answer  lies  the  secret,  and,  as  I  think,  the  possible  solution  of 
most  of  our  agricultural  troubles.  But  to  me  that  answer  is  a 
thrice-sealed  book.  I  cannot  look  into  the  future  or  prophesy  its 
developments.  Who  lives  will  see ;  these  things  must  go  as  they 
are  fated — here  I  bid  them  farewell. 

As  I  write  the  year  is  dying.  In  a  few  minutes  its  glass  runs 
out  and  1899  must  come,  the  last  year  but  one  of  an  eventful  and 
a  wondrous  century.  With  1898  this  humble  record  of  passing 
thoughts  and  little  things  is  finished,  and  it  remains  only  for  me 
to  offer  my  thanks  to  each  reader  who  has  found  patience  in  my 
company  to  wander  through  its  devious  pages.  If  any  idea, 
passage  or  reflection  in  them  has  pleased  him,  I  am  rewarded ; 
indeed,  to  speak  truth,  the  writing  of  them  has  brought  its  own 
reward,  since  to  me  it  is  a  joy  to  tell  day  by  day  of  this  earth 
which  is  at  once  '  our  mother  and  our  monument,'  of  its  fruits  and 
of  the  creatures  that  dwell  thereon. 

Now,  above  every  time  and  season,  in  this  moment  of  mid- 
night while  the  world  beneath  us  leaps  to  the  pathway  of  another 
year,  to  Him  who,  with  an  equal  hand,  makes  the  Star,  the  Child, 
and  the  Corn  to  grow,  and,  their  use  fulfilled,  calls  back  the  energy 
of  life  He  lent  them ;  to  the  Lord  of  birth  and  death ;  of  spring, 
of  summer,  and  of  harvest,  let  us  make  the  offering  of  a  thankful 
spirit  for  all  that  we  have  been  spared  of  ill  and  all  that  we  have 
won  of  good,  before  we  rise  up  in  quietness  and  confidence  to 
meet  the  fortune  of  the  days  to  be. 

THE  END 


SAINT     MARY'S    CHURCH,     DITCHINGHAM. 


APPENDIX 
I 

THE    RURAL   EXODUS 

NOTE 

The  following  paper  is  the  substance  of  an  address  delivered  hy  the 
author  before  the  Norfolk  Chamber  of  Agriculture  at  Norwich  on  May  6, 
1899,  when,  after  discussion,  the  resolution  proposed  in  it  was  carried 
unanimously.  He  reprints  it  here  because  it  has  occurred  to  him  that  it  is  as 
well  to  give  the  great  subject  with  which  it  deals  somewhat  more  adequate 
treatment  than  it  has  received  in  the  foregoing  pages,  and  still  more  because 
he  hopes  that  in  future  generations  some  readers  may  be  interested  in  learning 
the  condition  of  the  agricultural  labour  market  in  the  Eastern  Counties  in  the 
year  1899.  He  may  add  that  on  May  30  he  moved  a  very  similar  resolution 
— the  alteration  in  its  terms  being  merely  verbal — before  the  Central  and 
Associated  Chambers  of  Agriculture  in  London,  where,  after  criticism  and 
discussion,  it  was  also  carried  unanimously ;  a  fact,  he  ventures  to  submit, 
which  shows  in  how  serious  a  light  this  matter  of  the  depopulation  of  the 
rural  districts  is  regarded  by  representatives  of  the  agricultural  interests 
gathered  from  every  part  of  England.  That  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  Eastern 
Counties  is  in  no  ways  exaggerated  in  this  address  will  be  proved  by  the 
following  paragraph  cut  from  the  '  Norfolk  Chronicle  '  in  August  1899  : 

'  A  sale  of  standing  crops  of  wheat  and  barley  under  circumstances  unpre- 
cedented in  Norfolk,  and,  perhaps,  in  England,  has  taken  place  at  Wacton. 
On  Monday  Mr.  Robert  Borrett,  instructed  by  Mr.  Robert  K.  Fisher,  offered 
for  disposal  by  public  auction  the  growing  crops  of  wheat  and  barley  upon 
about  170  acres  of  land  in  the  parishes  of  Moulton  St.  Michael,  Pulham 
Market,  Tivetshall  St.  Margaret,  and  Wacton.  The  land  is  in  Mr.  Fisher's 
occupation,  and  the  official  notice  of  the  sale  stated  that  the  crops  were 
offered  in  consequence  of  there  being  a  scarcity  of  labour.' 

Could  any  domestic  occurrence  be  of  much  more  evil  omen  to  agriculture 
and  all  connected  with  the  land  than  this  strange  sale  of  unreaped  crops— or, 
indeed,  had  we  but  ears  to  hear,  and  eyes  to  see,  to  our  country  and  its 
inhabitants  ? 


46o  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

By  the  permission  of  the  Chamber  obtained  upon  a  previous  occasion 
I  beg  to  move  the  following  resolution  : 

'This  Chamber  respectfully  calls  the  attention  of  her  Majesty's 
Government  to  the  continual  and  progressive  shrinkage  of  the  rural 
population  in  the  eastern  counties,  and  especially  of  those  adult 
members  of  it  who  are  described  as  skilled  agricultural  labourers. 

*  In  view  of  the  grave  and  obvious  national  consequences  which 
must  result  if  this  exodus  continues,  the  Chamber  prays  that  her 
Majesty's  Government  will  as  soon  as  may  be  "convenient  make  its 
causes  the  subject  of  parliamentary  inquiry  and  report  with  a  view  to 
their  mitigation  or  removal.' 

Before  going  further  I  propose  to  prove  that  *  the  continual  and 
progressive  shrinkage  of  the  rural  population'  of  which  I  speak  in  this 
resolution  really  does  exist ;  that  it  is  not  a  mere  bugbear  created  by 
grumbling  farmers.  The  foundation-stone  which  I  will  lay  in  this  wall 
of  proof  that  I  hope  to  be  able  to  build  is  that  of  our  common  experience 
as  farmers,  proprietors,  and  others  connected  with  the  land.  Pro- 
bably there  are  few  gentlemen  present  who  would  not  be  able  to  tell 
the  Chamber  from  what  they  themselves  know  that  the  supply  of 
agricultural  labourers  is  much  less  than  it  used  to  be ;  that  to-day  it  is 
largely  furnished  indeed  from  the  ranks  of  elderly  and  old  men  who  at 
their  time  of  life  can  turn  to  nothing  else,  or  by  those  who  for  some 
reason  or  other,  such  as  mental  weakness,  are  unfit  to  do  anything 
else.  Most  of  those  present  could  tell  us  also  that  the  young  men 
are  no  longer  going  on  the  land  in  anything  like  the  same  proportion 
as  used  to  be  the  case,  and,  further,  that  when  they  do  go  on  the  land 
their  great  desire  is  to  get  off  it  and  into  some  other  employment  as 
quickly  as  possible. 

I  myself  farm  about  370  acres,  and  of  the  four  ploughmen  whom  I 
employ,  not  one  is  under  50,  and  two  must  be  between  60  and  70,  or 
so  I  judge  their  ages.  Indeed,  it  is  a  question  to  me,  if  anything  were 
to  happen  to  these  men,  where  I  should  look  for  others  of  sufficient 
skill  to  till  the  soil,  and  what  I  say  of  ploughmen  applies  equally  to 
the  other  classes  of  agricultural  labour,  such  as  milking,  drilling, 
thatching,  and  ditching,  in  which  training  and  judgment  are  required. 
For  more  than  a  year  I  have  been  looking  for  a  young  skilled 
labourer  to  whom  I  could  offer  the  advantage  of  a  good  cottage,  but 
have  been  unable  to  find  one.     Most  of  those  to  whom  I  have  spoken 


APPENDIX  461 

upon  the  subject  in  my  neighbourhood  make  the  same  complaint,  and 
the  other  day  when  going  over  a  farm  not  far  from  Halesworth,  the 
man  in  charge  of  it  told  me  that  the  labour  on  a  neighbouring  farm 
.of  nearly  two  hundred  acres  had  been  reduced  to  that  of  the  bailiff  in 
charge  of  it  and  one  horseman  through  all  the  winter  months,  the 
place  being  kept  going  only  by  its  owner  or  tenant  occasionally  send- 
ing over  men  from  another  farm  at  a  distance. 

Now  I  pass  on  from  personal  observations,  which,  after  all,  must 
be  very  partial  and  limited,  to  those  furnished  by  Parliamentary  and 
other  records,  or  by  gentlemen  in  neighbouring  counties  who  have 
.kindly  answered  my  questions  upon  the  matter.  First  I  quote  from 
the  report  of  the  inspector  of  the  union  counties  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk 
with  parts  of  Essex  and  Cambridge,  Mr.  Philip  Bagenal,  for  1897-8, 
as  made  by  him  to  the  Local  Government  Board.     In  it  he  says  : — 

'In  the  years  1871-91  the  census  returns  show  that  one-tenth  of 
the  agricultural  labourers  of  Norfolk  had  left  the  land.  There  is  too 
much  reason  to  believe  that  since  1891  the  rate  of  decrease  has  been 
accelerated.     For  the  same  period  in  Suffolk  the  decrease  in  the  same 

class  was  a  fraction  over  10  per  cent a  constant  drain  of  the 

best  class  of  wage-earners  is  thus  going  on.  The  old  and  infirm  are 
left  and  these  necessarily  come  on  the  rates.' 

The  next  document  I  shall  quote  from  is  the  '  Report  by  Mr.  Henry 
Rew  (Assistant-Commissioner)  on  the  county  of  Norfolk,' published  in 
1895.     In  paragraph  'j'^^  page  39,  he  says  \—t  . 

'  That  the  number  of  labourers  employed  upon  the  land  in  Norfolk 
has  decreased,  and  is  decreasing,  goes  almost  without  saying.'  Then 
he  quotes  figures,  and  adds,  'in  the  twenty  year's  1871-91,  therefore, 
one-tenth  of  the  agricultural  labourers  of  Norfolk  have  left  the  land. .  . 
There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  since  1891  the  decrease  has  been 
accelerated.' 

Further  on  he  shows  that  between  1871  and  1894  in  fourteen 
Norfolk  union  districts  there  has  been  a  net  decrease  in  population  of 
11,235,  whereas  between,  1871  and  1891  the  population  of  England  and 
Wales  increased  by  over  six  millions,  showing  that  the  diminution  is 
in  agricultural  districts  alone.  Further,  in  paragraph  76  he  quotes  the 
following  striking  allegations  : 

'  The  majority  of  farmers  consider  that  the  quality  of  the  labour 
has  deteriorated.  They  especially  alluded  to  the  lack  of  interest  in 
their  work  exhibited  by  the  men,  and  particularly  by  the  younger  men. 
"  The  young  men,"  said  one  witness,  "  will  not  learn  farm  work,  and 


462  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

will  be  of  no  use  on  the  land  when  they  grow  up."  Another  said  he 
did  not  know  a  man  under  50  years  of  age  who  knew  how  to  lay  a 
fence  or  underdrain.  Another  said  that  in  his  district  (North-east 
Norfolk)  the  first  prize  in  a  thatching  competition  was  awarded  to  a 
man  70  years  of  age.' 

In  his  report  on  the  county  of  Suffolk  published  in  1895,  the 
Assistant  Commissioner,  Mr.  Hugh  Fox,  on  page  7$  points  out  that 
between  1871  and  1891  the  number  of  male  agricultural  labourers  in 
the  county  has  fallen  from  40,751  to  36,202.  In  his  report,  published 
in  1894,  Mr.  Hunter  Pringle,  the  Assistant  Commissioner  for  parts  of 
Lincolnshire  and  Essex,  points  out  that  between  1 87 1  and  1 89 1  there  has 
been  a  decrease  of  17-2  per  cent  in  the  rural  population. 

Now  I  will  leave  official  records  and  come  to  those  of  a  more  private 
character.  To  begin  with,  I  may  state  that  in  my  own  neighbourhood 
I  am  informed  that  in  a  single  small  parish  40  cottages  are  standing 
empty.  Next  I  quote  from  a  letter  written  by  a  large  estate  agent  in 
Hertfordshire,  in  reply  to  queries  made  on  my  behalf.     He  says  : 

'  I  do  not  know  of  any  statistics  as  to  the  migration  of  labour  from 
Herts  to  London  or  elsewhere,  but  I  believe  it  to  be  a  fact  that  the 
labour  question  is  becoming  very  serious,  and  in  order  to  induce  men 
to  remain  on  the  land,  farmers  have  already  raised  their  wages,  in  one 
case  2s.  a  week  and  in  others  is.,  and  I  think  that  they  will  have  to 
make  a  still  further  rise  ;  and  I  fear  that  they  will  get  very  little,  if 
any,  more  work  done.  .  .  .  There  is  a  large  well-to-do  farmer  in  this 
district  who  is  giving  up  his  holding  this  next  Michaelmas,  and  he 
assures  me  that  the  only  reason  for  his  doing  so  is  the  fact  that  he 
cannot  get  labour.  ...  If  any  one  attended  our  local  markets  at  the 
present  time  he  would  find  that  the  "  labour  question  is  the  chief  topic 
of  conversation."  ...  I  am  afraid  the  true  and  serious  facts  of  the 
case  are  as  follow  :  All  the  young  men  have  or  are  quitting  the  land 
for  the  Army,  Navy,  towns,  railways,  police  and  large  nursery  grounds 
near  London,  leaving  only  the  idle  young  men  and  those  of  weak 
intellect  (who  are  of  no  use  anywhere),  the  middle-aged  and  old  men, 
to  work  the  land,  and  as  these  die,  or  become  incapacitated  through 
illness,  there  is  no  one  to  take  their  place,  and,  therefore,  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  time  and  there  will  be  a  very  few  hands  left  for  agricultural 
work.  I  am  afraid  that  nothing  short  of  a  very  substantial  rise  in 
wages  will  induce  the  young  men  to  remain  and  work  in  the  country, 
but  at  present  prices  I  do  not  see  how  the  farmer  can  afford  to  meet 
this  extra  call  on  his  expenses.     I  fear  that  there  is  a  good  deal  of 


APPENDIX  463 

truth  in  the  remark  a  farmer  made  to  me  yesterday,  "  Education  has 
done  it  all,  sir." ' 

Here,  too,  are  some  extracts  from  a  letter  written  to  me  by  a  large 
landowner  in  this  county.  Lord  Walsingham,  fror"  which  he  has  given 
me  leave  to  quote  : 

'April  13,  1899. 

.  .  .  'I  observe  that  you  are  about  to  introduce  a  discussion  in  the 
Norfolk  Chamber  of  Agriculture  on  the  dearth  of  agricultural  labourers, 
and  to  suggest  a  Government  inquiry  into  its  causes.  This  dearth  is 
much  felt  here,  and  although  for  many  years  I  have  been  cultivating 
land  at  a  loss  under  the  impression  that  it  was  at  least  a  charity  to 
find  employment  for  the  agricultural  population,  I  have  now  seriously 
to  contemplate  the  prospect  of  allowing  farms  which  do  pay  to  go  out 
of  cultivation  for  want  of  hands  to  carry  on  the  work.  Better  education 
makes  every  young  man  desire  to  wear  a  black  coat,  and  the  drift  is 
towards  the  towns,  where  clerks  are  superabundant  already,  and  the 
brain  market  is  overstocked.  Mechanical  contrivances  may  come  to 
the  rescue  to  some  extent.  I  send  a  lot  of  milk  to  London,  and  shall 
probably  be  obliged  to  milk  the  cows  by  machinery,  for  the  men  here 
dislike  the  job,  and  the  women  won't  do  it.  Yet  are  they  likely  to  be 
so  much  better  off  that  they  can  afford  to  decline  a  healthy  country 
life  and  rural  labour  ?  High  wages  will  not  mend  matters,  for  farming 
is  very  uphill  work  at  present  prices,  and  if  the  labour  bill  runs  high 
no  profit  can  be  made,  and  the  light  lands  must  go  back  to  rabbits. 
Already  many  farmers  prefer  to  pay  their  rent  out  of  these  rather  than 
to  run  the  risks  of  higher  cultivation.  .  .  .' 

Lord  Walsingham  informs  me  also  that  the  population  in  the 
villages  on  the  Merton  estate  showed  a  marked  diminution  at  the  last 
census  and  that  allotments  there  are  found  to  have  no  attraction,  as 
they  have  been  tried  and  failed.  I  add  another  instance  that  suggests 
a  rapidly  decreasing  population.  From  the  report  made  by  the 
Officer  of  Health  to  the  Bosmere  District  Council  in  Suffolk,  it  would 
appear  that  in  1898  the  marriages  of  the  district  were  about  2i2>  P^r 
cent,  less  than  those  of  1897,  and  14  per  cent,  less  than  the  average  of 
those  in  the  previous  decade.  Out  of  a  total  of  205  deaths  in  the  same 
district  it  would  appear  also  that  no  less  than  ninety-eight  were  those 
of  persons  of  over  sixty  years  of  age,  the  great  disproportion  of  the 
figures  being  explained  by  the  absence  of  that  section  of  the  population 
whose  ages  vary  from  twenty  to  sixty. 

Commenting  on  these  facts  in  an  article   he  East  Anglian  Daily 


464  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 

Times^  the  paper  from  which  I  cull  these  statistics,  adds  :  "  It  is  the 
same  everywhere,  and  yet  this,  the  most  urgent  of  all  social  problems, 
receives  practically  no  attention  from  our  legislators.'  It  was  my  in- 
tention to  quote  from  other  communications,  but  as  their  tenour  is  very 
similar  to  those  that  I  have  already  given,  and  as  time  is  short,  I  will 
not  do  so.  I  think  that  it  will  be  admitted,  however,  that  I  have  now 
proved  my  point  that  there  is  a  shrinkage,  a  large  shrinkage  of  the 
rural  population  going  on,  and  that  such  shrinkage  is  progressive  ;  that 
if  indeed  it  continues  at  the  present  rate,  within  a  time  which  our 
children  might  live  to  see,  there  would  be  practically  no  rural  popula- 
tion in  certain  parts  of  the  Eastern  Counties.^  My  own  belief,  which  is 
based  upon  death  entries  in  registers,  is  that  at  the  present  time  the 
population  of  many  of  our  villages  is  smaller  than  it  was  in  the  middle 
ages,  the  enormous  increase  which  is  revealed  by  the  census  having 
taken  place  in  the  towns. 

Now  I  go  on  to  my  second  point — namely,  What  are  the  causes  of 
this  shrinkage  ?  I  have  heard  various  reasons  given,  all  or  most  of  which 
have  some  weight  :  That  the  spread  of  education  makes  labour  on  the 
land  distasteful  to  the  young— though,  by  the  way,  one  would  think 
that,  other  things  being  equal,  true  education,  the  education  which 
teaches  us  how  great  and  good  a  thing  it  is  to  be  in  daily  contact  with 
Nature,  and  to  breathe  the  pure  air  undefiled  by  the  reek  of  cities, 
might  have  led  to  a  different  conclusion.  That  the  housing  of  labourers 
is  in  many  cases  insufficient — although  here  I  may  remark  that  the 
housing  of  similar  classes  in  large  towns  is  not  all  that  could  be  desired, 
and  the  rent  is  very  much  higher.    That  the  desire  for  music  halls  and 

'  The  following  letter,  received  since  this  paper  was  read,  seems  illustra- 
tive of  this  unpleasant  suggestion  : 

Welborne  Rectory,  E.  Dereham  :  May  17,  1899. 

Dear  Sir, — Having  read  with  interest  your  paper  on  the  '  Exodus  of  the 
Rural  Population,'  I  think  the  example  of  this  small  parish  may  interest  you 
as  showing  what  is  going  on  in  the  way  of  exodus.  In  1881  there  were  56, 
names  on  the  school  register — 31  boys  and  25  girls.  Of  the  56  only  two  are 
left  in  the  parish.     All  the  boys  are  gone. 

In  1890  there  were  36  names  on  the  register.  Only  eight  of  these  are  now 
living  in  the  parish. 

At  the  present  time,  1899,  there  are  23  names  only  on  the  register. 
Yours  faithfully, 

(Signed)  H.  B.  JohnsoN;  Rector, 
H.  Rider  Haggard,  Esq. 


APPENDIX  465 

other  forms  of  entertainment  draw  the  young  from  dull  country  places, 
which  is  doubtless  true. 

Such  are  some  of  the  reasons,  but  I  maintain  that  the  true  first  cause 
of  this  emigration  is  purely  economic  :  that  the  labourer  leaves  the 
land  because  the  land  cannot  pay  sufficient  wage  to  keep  him  upon  it, 
and  that  if  it  could  pay  him  sufficient  he  would  soon  get  over  his  longing 
for  the  music  halls,  or  his  dislike  of  labour  in  the  fields,  or  even  the 
insufficiency  of  house  accommodation  in  his  neighbourhood.  This  can 
easily  be  proved  ;  if  any  one  of  us  wants  a  groom,  or  a  keeper,  or  an 
under-gardener,  there  is  no  lack  of  applicants  for  the  post,  because  the 
work  is  comparatively  light  and  the  pay  a  few  shillings  a  week  better. 
Again,  you  will  find  that  gentlemen  in  business,  such  as  maltsters,  who 
can  afford  to  pay  good  wages,  can  find  plenty  of  labour  and  of  the  very 
best  class. 

I  think  then  that  we  may  take  it  as  a  proposition  beyond  all  reason- 
able doubt  that  the  labourer  is  leaving  the  land  because  in  the  present 
depressed  state  of  the  great  agricultural  industry  in  our  part  of  England 
the  cultivator  of  the  land  cannot  by  any  possibility  manage  to  pay  him 
a  better  wage  and  live  himself.  Into  the  vexed  question  of  whether  or 
no  the  young  fellow  who  thus  departs  to  find  employment  elsewhere 
really  betters  his  position  at  '  the  far  end'  I  have  no  time  to  enter  at 
length.  Still  it  must  be  remembered  that  \Zs.  or  i/.  a  week  always 
sounds  a  good  deal  better  than  \2s.  or  14^.,  and  however  the  thing  may 
work  out  at  last  the  young  man  who  strives  to  secure  the  higher  wage 
is  actuated  by  a  very  proper  and  laudable  ambition.  We  cannot  expect 
him  to  stop  here  and  turn  himself  into  a  ploughman  if  he  thinks  he  can 
do  better  elsewhere.  He  has  his  own  interests  to  consult,  like  every 
individual  among  us,  and  he  must  not  be  blamed  for  consulting  them. 

Well,  as  this  emigration  is  going  on,  and  if  some  way  is  not  found 
to  check  it,  is  likely  to  go  on,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  glance  at  its 
probable  results.  As  regards  the  land  they  seem  to  be  that  within  the 
next  twenty  years  or  so  a  great  deal  of  the  poorer  soil — the  very  heavy  and  ■ 
the  very  light— will  go  out  of  cultivation  ;  the  grass  area  will  be  largely 
increased,  while  such  lands  as  remain  for  arable  will  have  to  be  culti- 
vated by  machinery  directed  by  a  few  highly  paid  mechanics.  This 
in  its  turn  would  mean  that  small  fields  must  be  done  away  with,  since 
steam  ploughs,  &c.,  cannot  be  used  in  them  to  advantage.  You  can 
form  your  own  opinion  as  to  whether  this  prospect  is  pleasing  to  agri- 
culturists, or  advantageous  to  the  villages  and  small  country  towns 
which  are  in  process  of  desertion. 

H  H 


406  yl   FARMER'S    YEAR 

The  next  question  is  :  What  will  be  the  effect  upon  the  large  to\vtl9 
towards  which  the  migration  flows,  and  especially  upon  London  ?  I 
have  from  time  to  time  been  credited  with  some  powers  of  imagination, 
but  I  confess  that  they  fail  me  when  I  think  of  this  England  of  ours, 
spotted  with  huge  overgrown  cities,  surrounded  each  of  them  by 
market  gardens,  and  beyond  by  great  stretches  of  what  in  Africa  we 
should  call  veld,  that  is  unimproved  or  scarcely  improved  country, 
broken  here  and  there  by  the  mansions  of  rich  colonials  or  city  men, 
encircled  by  their  areas  of  sporting  lands.  Yet  appalling  and  in  some 
ways  almost  ludicrous  as  is  the  picture,  it  is  one  that  human  eyes  may 
see  unless  the  country  folk  cease  rushing  to  the  towns,  and  agriculture 
once  more  becomes  a  paying  pursuit,  or  rather,  unless  this  last  happens, 
since  all  these  questions  hinge  upon  the  prosperity  or  non-prosperity  of 
the  agricultural  interests. 

Behind  these  which  I  have  touched  upon  remains  the  largest 
question  of  all.  What  will  be  the  effect  upon  the  national  health  and 
physique,  and,  therefore,  upon  the  national  character,  of  the  tr?^ns- 
planting  of  the  sturdiest  classes  of  our  inhabitants,  the  dwellers  in  the 
rural  districts,  from  their  wholesome  country  homes  to  the  crowded 
courts  of  sweltering  cities  ?  I  dare  say  that  the  immediate  result  has 
been  exaggerated  by  some  thinkers  and  writers,  for  the  stamina  of 
the  race  will  hold  out  against  the  influence  of  surroundings  for  one 
generation,  or  perhaps  for  two.  But,  by  way  of  example,  look  at  the 
pure-bred  Cockney — I  mean  the  little  fellow  whom  you  see  running 
in  and  out  of  offices  in  the  City,  and  whose  forefathers  have  for  the 
last  two  generations  dwelt  within  a  two-mile  radius  of  Charing  Cross. 
And  then  look  at  an  average  young  labourer  coming  home  from  his 
day's  field  work,  and  I  think  that  you  will  admit  that  the  city  breeds 
one  stamp  of  human  beings,  and  that  the  country  breeds  another. 
They  may  be  a  little  sharper  in  the  towns,  but  after  all  it  is  not  mere 
sharpness  that  has  made  Great  Britain  what  she  is,  it  is  the  thews 
and  sinews  of  her  sons  which  are  the  foundation  of  everything,  and 
the  even,  healthy  minds  that  dwell  in  healthy  bodies.  Take  the 
people  away  from  their  natural  breeding  and  growing  grounds,  thereby 
sapping  their  health  and  strength  in  cities  such  as  nature  never 
intended  to  be  the  permanent  homes  of  men,  and  the  decay  of  this 
country  becomes  only  a  question  of  time.  In  this  matter,  as  in  many 
others,  ancient  Rome  has  a  lesson  to  teach  us.  That  is  why  this 
question  of  the  depopulation  of  the  country  is  a  question  of  national 
interest. 


APPENDIX  467 

And  now  one  word  as  to  the  possible  remedies  for  a  state  of  affairs 
which  I  think  most  people  will  be  inclined  to  admit  is  not  natural, 
and  which  may  prove  disastrous.  First,  I  will  say  that  in  my  humble 
opinion  what  a  speaker  in  this  Chamber  a  month  or  two  ago  very 
aptly  called  sugar-plum  cures  are  no  cures  at  all,  though  in  certain 
instances  they  may  be  palliatives,  and  after  all  palliatives  are  not 
to  be  despised.  I  mean  that  such  things  as  better  housing,  more 
technical  education,  more  rural  holidays,  such  as  flower  shows  and 
ploughing  matches,  more  coffee-rooms  and  games  of  draughts,  &c.,  will 
never  suffice  to  keep  the  labourer  on  the  land  unless  you  are  able  to 
raise  the  labourer's  wages.  No,  if  you  offered  him  a  house  with  hot  and 
cold  water  laid  on  throughout,  and  lit  with  electric  light,  and  took  him 
to  and  from  his  work  on  a  motor-car,  and  had  a  coffee  stall  erected  upon 
every  farm,  and  brought  him  to  a  lecture  three  times  a  week,  it  would 
not  persuade  him  to  accept  12^.  or  13J.  a  week  when  he  knows,  or 
believes,  that  by  transferring  himself  and  his  family  to  two  or  three 
squalid  rooms  in  the  dingy  courts  of  a  great  town,  he  can  earn  10s.  or 
25J.,  for,  as  I  said  before,  wages,  and  nothing  but  wages,  to  speak 
broadly,  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  movement  from  the  country  to  the 
towns. 

Another  remedy  which  in  my  opinion  is  no  remedy  is  the  semi- 
Socialistic  legislation  that  is  advocated  by  some,  by  which  I  mean 
legislation  whereof  the  real,  if  not  the  ostensible,  object  is  to  better 
the  position  of  the  labouring  classes  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  owners 
and  occupiers  of  land  and  the  allied  sections  of  society,  as  by  forcing 
them  to  build  houses  that  cannot  possibly  be  remunerative  at  their 
own  cost,  or  to  become  responsible  for  anything  and  everything  that 
may  happen  to  a  man  in  their  employ,  however  entirely  it  may  be  his 
own  fault.  It  is  no  remedy,  as  I  think,  for  this  reason,  that  you  cannot 
get  blood  out  of  a  stone.  The  land,  or  at  least  our  Eastern  Counties 
land,  can  bear  no  more  burdens.  As  it  is,  with  wheat  from  24J-.  to  255". 
per  quarter,  it  does  not  pay,  and  another  straw  or  two  upon  the  camel's 
back  will  break  it.  Governments,  it  is  probable,  would  like  to  solve 
the  trouble  in  this  fashion,  namely,  by  spoliation  of  certain  classes  for 
the  benefit  of  other  classes,  for  Governments  naturally  attack  the 
weak — that  is  those  who  have  few  votes — and  offer  them  up  as  a  sacri- 
fice to  those  who  have  many  votes,  and  from  whom  they  hope  to  win 
support.  But  although  the  agricultural  interest,  with  its  seven  or  eight 
millions  of  people  who  are  connected  with  it,  is,  I  suppose,  because  of 
its  suicidal  divisions,  its  timidity,  and  its  want  of  political  organisation, 

HH2 


468  A  FARMER'S   YEAR 

absolutely  the  weakest  in  the  kingdom,  it  has  this  protection— the 
protection  of  its  utter  poverty,  so  if  money  is  wanted  for  more  experi- 
ments in  popular  legislation  it  will  have  to  be  found  elsewhere. 

Then  what  is  there  that  could  help  the  land,  and  therefore  help  the 
labourer?  I  venture  to  suggest  one  or  two  things:  very  stringent 
measures,  which  would  make  it  impossible  for  the  farmer  to  be  defrauded 
by  the  sale  as  his  produce  of  that  which  he  never  grew ;  the  equalisation 
of  rates  and  taxation  upon  real  and  personal  property,  thereby  lessening 
the  burdens  that  now  fall  upon  the  land  ;  and  the  making  it  impossible, 
in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  for  carriers  to  transport  foreign  goods  at 
cheaper  rates  than  they  grant  to  British  produce. 

But  I  do  not  go  into  this  subject  at  length,  for  after  all  it  is  not 
our  province  to  decide  upon  the  remedies.  I  suggest  that  what  we 
have  to  do  is  to  call  the  attention  of  those  in  autliority  to  a  certain 
grave  state  of  affairs,  and  ask  them  to  deal  with  it,  for  a  Government 
is  immeasurably  more  clever  and  full  of  ideas  than  all  the  Chambers 
of  Agriculture  in  the  country  put  together  can  be  ;  moreover,  it  has  the 
power  of  translating  its  ideas  into  some  practical  and  useful  action. 
For  my  part  I  do  not  suppose,  however,  that  the  agriculturist  for  its 
mere  love  of  him,  would  be  likely  to  get  anything  from  this  or  any 
other  Government,  since  it  is  our  common  experience,  as  Mr.  Clare 
Sewell  Read  told  us  the  other  day,  that  when  he  asks  for  bread  he 
receives  a  stone,  and  I  may  add  that  he  is  fortunate  if  that  stone  is  not 
violently  thrown  at  his  head.  But  this  is  not  a  question  that  affects 
the  agriculturist  only,  although  in  my  opinion  it  is  the  gravest  which 
he  has  to  face,  or  will  shortly  become  so,  graver  even  than  foreign 
competition.  Nor  is  it  in  any  sense  a  party  question,  or  merely  a  local 
question,  as  if  I  had  time  and  you  had  patience  1  could  easily  prove 
to  you  from  an  unimpeachable  authority,  the  Labour  Gazette.  In  the 
April  iss';e  of  that  journal,  which  is  published  by  the  Board  of  Trade, 
are  reports  of  the  state  of  the  agricultural  labour  market  from  all  over 
England.  In  every  county  the  cry  is  the  same,  and  this  in  the  face  of 
a  rather  general  rise  in  wages.  In  the  article  with  which  these 
reports  are  prefaced  the  editor  says  : 

*  Reports  from  correspondents  in  nearly  every  county  refer  to  the 
increasing  difficulty  of  getting  extra  hands,  and  complaints  come  from 
some  districts  that  sufficient  labour  to  do  the  necessary  work  cannot 
be  obtained.' 

It  is,  I  repeat,  a  national  question,  and  the  state  of  affairs  upon  which 
I  have  dwelt  constitutes  a  national  danger.   Wc  have  therefore  a  right 


APPENDIX  469 

to  ask  that  it  should  be  inquired  into,  and  dealt  with  by  the  national 
authorities.  At  least  that  is  my  view,  after  §01116  study  of  the  matter, 
and  I  hope  that  it  may  prove  to  be  the  view  of  this  Chamber.  I  know 
that  some  landowners  and  farmers  say  :  *0h!  leave  it  alone*— they 
wish,  for  reasons  that  seem  to  me  absolutely  futile,  and  in  these  days  of 
newspapers  and  universal  publicity,  unwise  and  even  dangerous,  to  try 
to  keep  the  facts  secret ;  to  adopt  the  policy  of  an  ostrich,  and  hide 
their  heads  in  a  ditch  while  the  labourer  and  the  more  vigorous  members 
of  his  family  tramp  past  them  to  the  railway  station,  leaving  the  sick, 
aged,  and  incompetent  to  swell  the  rates.  But  I  do  not  believe  in  that 
policy.  I  believe  that  it  is  much  better  to  be  frank  and  look  matters  in 
the  face,  even  if  it  does  involve  the  discussion  of  economic  questions 
with  which  they  have  a  perfect  right  to  be  acquainted  by  the  classes 
chiefly  concerned.  Also  I  believe  that,  nowadays  more  than  ever,  if 
you  want  a  thing  looked  into  and  remedied  you  must  make  a  stir 
about  it,  for  who  is  to  move  if  the  people  primarily  interested  do  not  ? 
This  belief  is  my  excuse  for  troubling  you  to-day. 

I  hope  that  this  may  be  your  opinion  also,  and  as  now,  to  my  own 
satisfaction  at  any  rate,  I  have  proved :  I.  That  there  is  a  pro- 
gressive shrinkage  of  the  rural  population  in  the  Eastern  Counties. 
2.  That  such  shrinkage  constitutes  a  grave  national  danger.  3.  That 
its  causes  ought  to  be  inquired  into  by  Government  with  a  view  to  their 
mitigation  or  removal,  I  beg  to  move  the  resolution  which  has  already 
been  read  to  you. 


470  A  FARMER'S    YEAR 


II 

NOTE 

As  an  almost  perfect  illustration  of  the  effect  of  unfettered  foreign  competition 
upon  the  prospects  of  the  British  Producer,  I  reprint  here  a  very  striking  letter, 
written  by  Mr.  Frederick  Marryat,  an  Argentine  farmer,  which  appeared  in  the 
Morning  Post  of  June  17,  1899.  I  wish  to  call  attention  particularly  to  Mr. 
Marryat's  statements  as  to  the  British  butcher  and  '  home-grown '  meat,  and 
to  his  debonnaire  summing  up  of  the  situation  in  the  last  sentence  of  his  letter. 
Little  wonder  that  he — kind  and  altruistic  competitor — puts  up  the  pious 
prayer  that  free  trade  may  long  continue,  in  view  of  his  own  conclusion  that  in 
face  of  it  '  the  revival  of  English  agriadture  is  an  utter  impossibility. ' 

To  the  Editor  of  the  '  Morning  Post ' 

Sir, — I  have  read  with  much  interest  the  various  theories  pro- 
pounded both  for  and  against  the  revival  of  English  agriculture 
wondering  much  at  the  hopefulness  of  some  contributors,  and  at  the 
'baseless  fabric  of  a  dream'  on  which  they  rely.  I  have  been  for 
nearly  twenty  years  a  breeder  of  cattle,  sheep,  and  horses,  a  fattener 
of  stock,  and  a  grower  of  wheat,  maize,  hay  and  barley,  in  the  Argentine 
Republic,  and  I  can  say  with  confidence  that  as  long  as  Free  Trade 
exists — and  long  m.ay  it  do  so — the  revival  of  English  agriculture  is 
an  utter  impossibility.  England  cannot  compete  with  new  countries 
in  producing  any  of  the  things  enumerated  above,  and  time  will  only 
add  new  obstacles.  We  have  everything  in  our  favour.  MilHons  of 
acres  of  virgin  soil  from  one  to  four  feet  deep  to  be  rented  or  bought 
at  a  nominal  valuation  ;  a  climate  where  stock  of  all  kinds  can  remain 
m  the  open  paddocks  all  the  year  round  with  no  artificial  fattening 
food  except,  perhaps,  a  little  hay  in  exceptional  droughts  ;  labour  of 
ploughing,  &c.,  far  below  European  wages,  the  cost  of  harrowing, 
ploughing  and  sowing  by  contract,  coming  out  at  about  \s.  6d.  an  acre, 
the  owner  supplying  horses  and  implements  ;  one  man,  with  a  double 
furrow  plough  and  four  horses,  doing  about  four  acres  of  ploughing  per 
day,  and  the  cost  of  transport  so  low  that  freights  from  Buenos  Ayres 
or  Rosario  to  Liverpool  are  but  little  more  than  those  from  Liverpool 


APPENDIX  471 

to  London.  Above  all,  everything  is  done  on  an  enormous  scale,  and  the 
economy  of  supervision  and  management  is  therefore  minimised,  and 
an  owner  can  afford  to  get  less  profit,  because  it  is  a  question  of  a 
small  gain  on  large  quantities.  May  I  be  allowed  to  quote  my  own 
case,  not  as  being  an  exceptional  one — quite  the  reverse.  My  estancia 
contains  about  ten  thousand  acres.  Between  1892  and  1897  it  con- 
sisted of  about  four  thousand  acres  of  arable  land,  and  the  remainder 
in  paddocks  of  lucerne  or  alfalfa^  laid  down  after  several  crops  of 
wheat  had  been  taken  from  the  ground.  We  sow  about  a  bushel  to 
the  acre  of  wheat,  and  average  about  fifteen  for  one  in  good  years  and 
ten  in  bad  ones — say  twelve  all  round.  The  reader  can  calculate  the 
result  and  deduct  probable  expenses,  if  he  is  an  expert,  and  if  not,  he 
can  take  my  word  that  English  farmers  are  out  of  the  running.  As 
regards  stock,  we  had  given  up  breeding,  except  a  fine  stock  point  of 
about  five  hundred  head.  We  bought  store  cattle  from  up  country, 
and  passed  through  about  four  to  five  thousand  fat  stock  yearly,  rarely 
making  less  than  30  per  cent,  increase  on  the  purchasing  price. 
Horses  'breed  themselves,'  and  are  no  trouble  to  any  one,  running  out 
all  the  year  through.  We  bred  *  vanners '  from  Shire  stock.  We  had 
a  small  stock  of  two  thousand  Lincoln  sheep,  which  in  three  years 
gave  me  over  100  per  cent,  in  wool  and  wethers,  but  I  sold  the  flock, 
as  it  took  up  so  much  time  in  keeping  down  the  scab.  How,  then, 
can  the  English  farmers  compete  with  us?  Of  course,  drought, 
disease,  and  locusts  often  do  terrible  damage,  but,  taking  all  things 
into  account,  we  can  '  win  as  we  like,'  and  time  only  strengthens  our 
position,  as  we  continue  to  improve  the  class  of  stock  and  open  up 
more  country  with  new  railways.  Thousands  of  fine  beasts  and  tens 
of  thousands  of  sheep  are  annually  sent  alive  to  England  and  there 
killed  and  sold  as  '  home  grown.'  The  Army  and  Navy  Stores  may 
differentiate  between  '  fresh  killed  foreign '  and  '  home  grown,'  but  not 
the  British  butcher.  No  !  English  agriculture  is  a  thing  of  the  past, 
and  land  in  England  has  to-day  practically  little  more  than  a  prairie 
value  as  far  as  the  farmer  is  concerned. 

Yours,  &c., 

Frederick  Marryat, 
16  Iddesleigh  Mansions,  Westminster  ; 
June  16, 


INDEX 


Advowsons,  sale  of,  267-8 

Africa,  violence  of  thunderstorms  in, 
320-I  ;  horse-sickness,  394.  See 
also  South  Africa 

Agricultural  enthusiast,  an,  439 

Agricultural  labourers,  51,  53;  skill 
at  their  work,  66,  72 ;  and  the 
comic  papers,  67 ;  education,  67, 
73  ;  their  problem  of  life,  67-9 ; 
provision  for  old  age,  68-71,  384  ; 
the  '  survival  of  the  fittest '  theory, 
71 ;  pay  and  hours  of  labour,  72-3  ; 
..cottages,  73».  322-3,  325;  posi- 
tion at  the  beginning  of  the  century, 

"  .73;  drift  of  the  young  men  to  the 
towns,  72>  170,  203,  338-9,408-9, 
457j  459-69 ;  emigration :  their 
horror  of  change  and  the  unknown, 
74-5 ;  scarcity  of  good  hands, 
74-5,  421-2,  460-2 ;  objections 
to  enlisting,  75,  76;  taking  service 
on  Lowestoft  fishing  smacks,  75-6  ; 
indifference  to  the  monotony  of 
their  labour,  79 ;    hardships  of  a 

•  *good  old-fashioned  winter,'  80; 
rate  of  wages,  117,  204,  285, 
294-S>  376,  416,  465,  467,  470 ; 
and  holidays,  136;  political  con- 
victions of,  165,  186,  456-7  ;  and 
egg-stealing,  228  ;  decline  of  skill 
among,  338  ;  unwiUingness  to  enter 
for  competitions,  407-8 

Agricultural  land,  decrease  in  value, 
310-II 

Agiicultural  machinery,  advantages 
of  using,  264,  274,  360 


Agricultural  produce  :  cost  of  car- 
riage, 410,  411 

Agriculture,  condition  of  in  Eastern 
Counties,  34,  41,  43,  48,  129-31, 
417,  418,  445-6,  457;  waning 
political  influence  of,  445,  456, 467  ; 
State  aid:  a  suggestion,  455,  457 

All  Hallows  Farm :  acreage,  32, 
35-7 ;  proportion  of  arable  and 
pasture,  37  ;  work  in  the  fields, 
47,  64,  100,  104,  106,  120,  128, 
132-3,  148,  158,  213,  222,  234, 
284,  307,  315,  317 ;  care  of  live 
stock,  57,  92,  95,  365  ;  state  of 
growing  crops,  149,  404 ;  the  hay 
harvest,  240,  245,  249,  250,  256  ; 
stack  making,  271,  328,  405  ; 
harvesting  the  grain,  325,  328, 
332  ;  lifting  root  crops,  385 

Allotments,  crops  grown  on,  248 

America,  dislike  of  English  farm 
hands  to,  74 ;  food-producing 
power  of,  180 

American  agricultural  machinery,  hold 
on  the  English  market,  273 

Animals,  their  sensitiveness  to  pain, 
I  74j  390 ;  behaviour  of  wild 
animals  during  a  shooting    beat, 

433-7 

Annual  valuation,  the,  381 

Anti-vaccinationists,  and  the  Vaccina- 
tion Bill,  279,  280 

Arable  land,  decrease  in  area  of,  333, 
446 

Arinagaur  chapel,  Coll,  350 

Army  and  Navy  Stores,  471 


474 


A  FARMER'S    YEAR 


Ash,  excellence  of  wood  for  agricul- 

tural  implements,  214 
Australian  mutton  sold  as  Welsh,  194 


Bagenal,  Mr.  Philip,  409,  461 

Bailiffs,  gentlemen  applicants  for 
employment  as,  421-2 

Baker's  Farm  :  acreage,  32,  36-7  ; 
proportion  of  arable  and  pasture, 
37  ;  condition  of  land  and  crops, 
35,  44,  63,  89,  149,  198,  212,  219, 
365  ;  farming  operations,  48,  63, 
81,  88,  119,  132,  137,  156,  162, 
240,  249,  278,  301  ;  the  live  stock, 
63,  89,  92,  128,  187,  452;  hay- 
making and  stacking,  247,  256, 
266,  271,  286,  288,  293  ;  harvest- 
ing pease  and  grain,  307,  317, 
322,  325,  328 

Balance  sheets  of  the  farms,  38-9, 
441 

Banks,  loan  of  capital  by  to  farmers, 
42 

Barley,  13,  128,  156,  198,  212-3, 
252,  255,  307  ;  ploughing  for,  64  ; 
shedding  of,  in  dry  seasons,  97, 
12S,  161  ;  prices  of,  172,  337, 
364,  366,  389  ;  harvesting,  307-9, 
312,  317,  327-8,  332  ;  thrashing, 
376,  378 ;  sale  of  standing  crops, 

459 

Barnato,  Mr.  Barney,  quoted,  154 

Basket  sparrow  traps,  90 

Bath  Hills,  Ditchingham  :  known  in 
ancient  times  as  the  Earl's  Vine- 
yard, 18;  beauty  of  views  from, 
18,  20,  21  ;  evidence  as  to  the 
former  existence  of  a  vineyard, 
20-22  ;  account  (1738)  of  a  mineral 
spring  and  bath-house,  21  ;  attempt 
to  establish  a  wild  bird  preserve, 
27 ;  the  southern  portion,  30 ; 
other  references  to,  91,  117,  120, 
122,  137,  148,  161,  173,  180,  195, 
213,  222,  239 

Baulking,  93,  223 

Baulk-splitting,  201,  214,  216 

Beans,  96,  155,  160,  213,  217,  219, 
223,  255,  372,  378;  prices  ob- 
tained for,    178;  harvesting,  327, 


336 ;  appearance  of  when  dead 
ripe,  329  ;  root  formation  of,  388 

Beccles,  19  ;  floods  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of,  30 

Becke,  Mr.  Louis,  300 

Bedingfelds,  the,  261 

Bedingham :  Blomefield's  derivation 
of  the  name,  4 ;  antiquity  of  the 
village,  4 ;  early  history  and 
notable  inhabitants,  4-7  ;  see 
Moat  Farm 

Bedingham  Church,  159,  256;  the 
registers,  240 ;  quaint  extracts 
from,  241-5 

Bedingham  Hall,  6 

Bedingham  Priory,  6 

Beer,  adulteration  of,  71 

Bees,  217 

Beet,  56,  212,  217,  219,  223-4, 
246,  251,  253,  255>  284,  294,  336, 
365;  seed  drilling,  137,  148,  156, 
157  ;  horse-hoeing  crops,  155  ;  cut- 
ting-out, 234,  248,  249  ;  destruc- 
tion of  by  horse-hoe,  284  ;  lifting 
and  haling,  375,  383,  385,  395, 
400,  402  ;  different  methods  of  lift- 
ing, 375,  385  ;  the  crop  at  Beding- 
ham, 380,  395 

Begging  letters  and  impostors,  422-3  ; 
a  genuine  case,  423 

Benacre  Broad,  208-9 

Benedictine  nunnery  at  Bungay, 
remains  of,  24 

Benefices  Bill,  the,  267 

Bensely  (bailiff),  killed  by  a  bull,  146 

Beresford,  Lord  Charles,  179 

Betting,  mischief  caused  by,  154 

Bigod's  (Earl)  vineyard,  20 

Bigods,  the,  5,  113;  Sir  Hugh 
Bigod,  23,  24  J  Sir  Roger  Bigod, 
.24 

Birds,  behaviour  of  during  a  shooting 
beat,  433-7 

Black  Dog  of  Bungay,  legend  of, 
26-7 

Blackmailing  parliamentary  candi- 
dates, 165 

Blomefield,  quoted,  4,  20 

'Blowing'  of  cattle,  84,  128;  local 
recipes  for,  87-8 

Blythborough  Church,  257 


INDEX 


475 


Boarding    out    London    children    in 

villages,  286 
Bolton,  Mrs.  (Nelson's  sister),  450 
Bond  crank,  283 
Bond  spool,  283 
Borrett,  Mr.  Robert,  459 
Boswell,  339,  341-2,  344,  353-4 
Botfly,  see  Horsebee 
Bountyon  wheat,  question  of  a,  413-5) 

419,  455 
Boy  killed  by  swallowing  tin  squeaker, 

372 

Boys,  damage  done  to  hawthorns  by, 
172-3 

Bozards,  the,  261 

Bradenham  Hall,  139,  375 

Bradenham  Wood,  139 

Brambles,  removing,  12 

Brewers  and  'tied'  houses,  71,  iio- 
12,  114;  vast  political  strength  of, 
III,  113 

Brews,  Margery,  6 

Brick,  made  in  1393,  322-3  ;  Nelson's 
initials  on  a,  449 

Bridle,  an  ancient,  56 

British  colonies  as  an  emigration 
field,  74,  182-3,  396-8 

Brittany  butter,  preparation  of  for  the 
London  market,  190 

Broach-splitting,  process  of,  1 82 

Broaches,  use  of,  283 

Broome,  201,  202 

Broome  Church,  440 

Bruce  (or  Brews),  tradition  of,  6 

Brunllan,  Roger,  Alveva,  and 
Thomas,  24-5 

Brushing  pasture  land,  128,  129, 
141,  149 

Buck  (farm  labourer),  61,  142,  222, 
271,  282-4,  295,  322,  366 

Bungay,  18,  19,  20,  21,  23,  246, 
273,351;  remains  of  a  Benedictine 
nunnery,  24  ;  formerly  famed  for 
copper  bottoming  of  ships,  26 ; 
legend  of  the  Black  Dog,  26-7  ; 
reminiscences  of  Chateaubriand's 
connection  with,  28-9  ;  floods, 
31  ;  rent  audit  at,  49-56  ;  sale  by 
auction  of  the  King's  Head  Hotel, 
no,  III,  113,229;  'tied'houses 
in,    1 10-12;    tablet    on    front  of 


house,  recording  price  of  grain  in 
1800,  1 71-2;   licensed  houses  in, 

327 

Bungay  Brewster  Sessions,  327 

Bungay  Castle,  21,  23,  24,  113,  114, 
229 

Bungay  Common  .(or  Outney),  18,  19, 
21,  46 

Bungay  compost,  47,  132,  307,  383 

Bungay  market,  108-9, 169,  172,  189, 
219 

Bungay  Races,  154 

Burial  Service,  refusal  by  a  clergyman 
to  read  over  a  parisioner,  236 

Bush-draining,  14,  43,  97,  109,  420 ; 
description  of,  65,  76,  78 

Butter,  125 ;  fraudulent  competition 
of  margarine,  183-4,  191,  445,  446; 
prices  obtained  for,  189,  207  ;  unre- 
muneralive  to  the  small  farmer, 
189-90;  importation  of  inferior,  190 

Butter  Association,  shopkeepers  sum- 
moned by,  193-4 

Butterflies,  163 


Calves  and  calving,  47,  57-8,  114, 

116,  146,  162,  371-2 
Candlemas  Day  proverbs,  101-2 
Canham    (page    to  Nelson's  sister), 

450 

Carr,  Mr.,  322 

Carrots,  soil  for,  1 32-3 ;  growing, 
219,  286;  damage  done  to  by 
rabbits,  293 ;  lifting  and  storing, 
400,  402 

Cart-wheels,  repairing,  222 

Carter,  Mr.,  killed  by  lightning,  321 

Cat  and  cock  pheasant,  439 

Cattle  :  Norfolk  red  polls,  48,  58-60, 
64-5,  117,  119,  213,  248,  253, 
293,  382  ;  rearing  for  the  show- 
yard,  64,  65,  136,  213,  253,  395, 
412,  417,  439;  risks  of  buying  at 
markets,  83-4,  89,  106,  109; 
instinct  in,  84  ;  '  blowing '  of,  84, 
%"],  88  ;  sickness  among,  105,  109, 
114,  116,  120,  128,  188;  estima- 
ting weight  of,  119,  282  ;  feeding 
in  winter,  150,  156,  272,  287  ; 
buying  and  selling  prices,   i8i-2, 


476 


A  FARMER'S   YEAR 


187-9,  206-7,  282,  293-4,  364, 

373.  405,  417;  rearing,  189;  ob- 
jection of  to  dogs,  198  ;  destruction 
of  young  willows  by,  275  ;  difficulty 
of  obtaining  well-bred,  288  ;  first 
prize  at  North  Suffolk  Association 
Show  won  by  the  Bedingham  ox, 
Royal  Duke,  365  ;  prayer  for  miti- 
gation of  disease  among,  about  year 

1743.  393 
Cattle    yards,    roofing  in,   94,    234, 

256,  366,  379»  412 
Central  and  Associated  Chambers  of 

Agriculture,  459 
Chaff-cutting,  221 
Cliaplin,    Mr.,    and    the    margarine 

trade,  183-4,  191 
Charity  Organisation  Society,  423 
Chateaubriand,  Vicomte  de,  reminis- 
cences   of    his     connection     with 
Bungay,  28-9 
Chestnuts,  bloom  of,  212 
Christmas  Day,  45,  438,  439 
Chrysanthemum   show   at    Norwich, 

398 
Church    of  England  :   the   Benefices 
Bill,  267  ;  sale  of  advowsons,  267  ; 
want  of  discipline  and  uniformity, 
268  ;  power  of  the  bishops,  268-9  » 
next  presentations,  269  ;  necessity 
of  reform,  270 
Church  of  St.  Mary,  Bungay,  26,  27 
Church  of  the  Holy  Cross,  Bungay, 

24-5 

Clabac  Presbyterian  Church,  352 

Clay  lands,  see  Heavy  lands 

Clearing  land,  12 

Clergymen :  diminishing  incomes  of 
in  rural  parishes,  169,  454 ;  in- 
stances of  formidable  spiritual 
power  of,  236-7 ;  as  sportsmen, 
386-7  ;  as  cyclists,  447 

Clover,  sowing  seed  by  hand,  142  ; 
condition  of  growing  crops,  149 

Coastguard,  ordered  to  mobilise,  380 

Cobra,  adventure  with  a,  in  the 
Transvaal,  180 

Cocks,  attacked  by  turkeys,  115 

Coll,  see  Hebrides 

Collie  dog,  gruesome  tale  of  a,  352 

Colman,  Mr.,  60,  395 


Colonial  College,  Suffolk,  230 
Colonies,  the,  as  an  emigration  field, 

74,  182-3,  397 
Colts,  116  ;  accident  to  one  at  Bed- 
ingham,  162,  224;  operating  on, 

174 

Coltsfoot,  225 

Comic  papers  and  the  agricultural 
labourer,  67 

Cooke  (labourer),  199 

Co-operation  between  farmer  and 
labourers  :  is  it  practicable  ?  337 

Corn,  progressive  reduction  in  crop 
area,  446  ;  see  Wheat,  &c. 

Corncrakes,  254 

Cottages,  labourers',  73,  322-3,  325 

Country  establishments  of  the  Georg- 
ian era,  261 

Country  magistrates  and  '  tied '  house 
licences,  iio-ii  ;  a  lunacy  case  on 
Sunday,  151  ;  School  Board  cases, 
202-3  5  egg-stealing  and  other 
rural  offences,  227,  246,  433  ;  and 
the  Vaccination  Bill,  279 ;  and 
the  Criminal  Evidence  Act,  402-3 

Country  political  election  meetings, 
174-7,  I94>  200,  201 

County  Councils,  elections  for,  117  ; 
success  of,  118;  waning  interest 
in,  118 

Cow-cabbage,  sown  with  beet,  148 

Cremation,  advantages  of,  428 

Crime,  progressive  diminution  of,  327 

Criminal  Evidence  Act,  the,  376 ; 
working  of,  402;  objections  to, 
403  ;  Mr.  Justice  Hawkins's  opin- 
ion, 403 

Crofter  question,  the,  356 

Crookes,  Sir  William,  on  the  wheat 
supply,  333-35 

Crops,  see  names  of  cereals,  roots.  Ax. 

Crowfoot,  Dr.,  198 

Cuckoos,  309 

*  Cultivating,'  description  of  imple- 
ment, 240 

Curlews,  note  of,  46;  on  the  Bath 
Hills,  222 

Currie,  Mr.,  203 

Curzon,  Mr.,  72 

Cyprus,  destruction  of  young  trees  by 
goats,  276 


INDEX 


477 


Dairies,  inspectors  of,  369,  370 

Danish  butter,  importation  of,  190 

Darwin,  quoted,  91,  373 

De  Gournays,  the,  5 

Denton  Farm  and  its  aged  tenants, 

290,  291 
Denton  parish  register,  244 
Depwade  Union  Workhouse :  attempt 

by  the  poor  to  prevent  its  erection, 

.432 

Di  and  Dan,  terriers,  anecdotes  of, 
92,  115,  405 

Dilapidations,  10 

Diphtheria,  outbreak  of  in  '  the 
Parishes,'  135 

Ditchingham,  description  of  village 
and  parish,  17-9  j  origin  of  name, 
17-8 

Ditchingham  Church,  17,  232,  258 

Ditchingham  farms,  3,  17  ;  damage 
caused  by  floods,  30 ;  nature  and 
condition  of  soil,  31-3;  acreage 
of  separate  holdings,  32 ;  stock 
and  hired  labour,  32  ;  commence- 
ment of  farming,  32  ;  taking  over 
of  All  Hallows  and  Baker's  Farms : 
their  condition,  35  ;  plan  of  the 
farms,  36 ;  details  of  pasture, 
arable,  crops,  and  rentals  of  each 
farm,  37  ;  cash  and  profit  and  loss 
accounts,  38-39  ;  financial  results 
and  the  causes  thereof,  40-44 ; 
draining,  43  ;  the  hay  crop,  288 ; 
the  harvest  agreement,  294,  295  ; 
balance-sheet,  441  ;  see  All  Hal- 
lows, Baker's,  and  Home  Farm 

Ditchingham  Habitation  of  the 
Primrose  League,  292 

Ditchingham  Hall,  261 

Ditchingham  Lodge,  19,  20,  27,  28, 
29,  30,  212,  221,  234,  248,  421 

Ditchingham  Parish  Council,   118-9 

Ditchingham  Park,  318 

Divining-rod  for  finding  water,  359 

Dock  weed,  vitality  of,  81,  199,  248, 
277  ;  varieties  of,  198,  230 ;  pos- 
sible use  for,  230 

Dogs,  anecdotes  of,  92,  352,  404  ; 
hunting  fowls,  115;  attacking 
lambs  and  sheep,  142-3,  245,  404-5 

Donkeys,  damage  to  trees  by,  276 


'  Dowser  '  (water  finder),  failure  of 

attempt  by,  360 
Dowsing,  William  ('visitor,'  1643), 

damage  done  to  Suffolk  Churches 

by,  257 
Draining,  8,  12,  14,  31,  43,  65,  (id, 

76,  78-9,  94,  97,  109,  133,  420 
Drinking-water  of  farms  and  villages, 

135-6 
Drovers,  cruelty  of,  83,  109,  410 
Dunwich,  washing  away  of  churches 

by  the  sea,  31 
Dyke-drawing,  48-9 

Earlham  Hall,  368 

'Earl's  Vineyard,'  the,  see  Bath  Hills 

Earsham,  18,  222 

Earth-worms,  useful  work  of,  91 

East  Coast,  encroachment  of  sea  on, 
30,  31,  447  ;  absence  of  concerted 
efforts  at  protection,  30-31 

Easter  Monday  Vestries,  144 

Eastern  Counties,  condition  of  agri- 
culture in,  34,  41,  43,  48,  129-31, 
417,  418,  445-6,  457 

Education  of  agricultural  labourers' 
children,  67,  73 ;  School  Board 
prosecutions,  202-3  »  necessity  of 
change  of  system  of,  in  country  dis- 
tricts, 204  ;  effect  of  on  agriculture, 
463,  464 

Edward  I.,  24 

Edwards,  Rev.  Mr.,  rector  of  Ashill, 
244 

Egg-stealing,  227  ;  systematic  trade 
in  stolen  eggs,  228 

Egyptians,  trial  of  character  of  dead 
persons  by  jury,  236 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  26,  31 

Ellingham  Park,  Primrose  League 
fete  at,  292 

Elliot,  Mr.,  14,  15,  263 

Emigration  of  farm  hands,  74  ;  their 
objections  to  change  and  the  un- 
known, 74-5 

Employers  insuring  their  labourers,  69 

English  Farmers'  Association,  193, 
194 

English  meat,  effect  of  foreign  com- 
petition on  prices,  42,  411,  440, 
456,  470 


47^ 


A  FARMER'S    YEAR 


Enlistment  of  farm  hands,  evils  of, 

75.  76 
Entailed  land,  troubles  of  owners,  50 
Evans,  Sir  John,  359 
Excommunication  of  a  parishioner,  by 

a  clergyman,  237 


Faggot  carting,  173,  174 

Fairhead  (ploughman),  126,  134,  137, 
141,  145,  149,  252 

Fairhead,  junior,  282-3 

Fairhead,  Mrs.,  250,  252 

Fairy  rings,  226 

Farm  buildings,  dilapidations,  10 

Farm  horses  and  their  work,  intelli- 
gence of,  107,  185,  221 

Farm  labourers,  see  Agricultural 
labourers 

Farmer's  widow,  an  unfortunate,  417 

Farmer's  year,  see  under  Year 

Farmers  :  want  of  co-operative  spirit, 
31  ;  gradual  disappearance  of  old 
farming  families,  50,  51  ;  anec- 
dotes of,  52,  53,  56;  and  their 
labourers,  73  ;  dislike  of  to  moles, 
91  ;  and  elementary  education, 
203  ;  prefer  to  buy  machinery 
from  local  merchants,  274 ;  a 
reduced  farmer's  tale,  367 

Farming  :  economy  of  large  hold- 
ings, 3,  317;  financial  results  of, 
9,  12,  14,  38-44,  SO,  129-31, 
169-70,  44 1-5  ;  'off-hand'  farm- 
ing, lo-ii  ;  absence  of  protective 
combination  among  farmers,  31, 
41;  precarious  condition  of  in  East- 
ern Counties,  34,  41,  43,  48,  129- 
31,  417-8,  445-6,  457  ;  in  South 
Africa,  76-8 ;  townpeople's  ignor- 
ance of,  80 ;  ceaseless  nature  of 
work,  129  ;  effects  of  Free  Trade 
on,  129-30,  412,  419 

Farms,  neglected,  8  ;  letting,  3,  9,  12, 
16 

Farmyards,  10 

Felling  undergrowth,  80 

Female  farm  labourers,  250,  251 

Fence  trimming,  411 

Fielding,  Mr.,  killed  at  the  battle  of 
Lubwa,  390 


Financial  results  of  farming,  see 
Farming 

Fisher,  Mr.  Robert  K.,  459 

Flat-hoeing,  process  of,  224 

Pleming,  Abraham,  27 

Flintoff,  a  paralytic,  death  of,  418-9 

Flixton  Park,  405 

Floods,  effects  of,  30,  31,  125,  233 

Flour,  price  of,  182 

*  Fly '  on  plants,  253 

Foals,  126,  134-7.  I45>  160,  179, 
206  ;  death  of  a  foal,  302,  305 

Fool's  parsley,  306 

Foreign  meat,  dishonest  competition 
of,  42,  411.  440.  456,  470 

Foreign  Powers,  hostile  combination 
of :  probable  effect  on  our  food 
supply,  179,  380 

Forest  trees  in  hedgerows,  173 

Fox,  Mr.  Hugh,  462 

Free  Trade  versus  Protection  :  effect 
of  Free  Trade  on  agriculture,  130, 
412-9  ;  benefits  foreign  produce 
only,  131  ;  taxation  of  imports, 
131,  413,  455  ;  influence  on  price 
of  wheat,  158,  412-9;  rights 
and  wrongs  of  Free  Trade,  171  ;  a 
newspaper  correspondence,  412-5, 
419  ;  is  a  bounty  on  wheat 
desirable  ?  413-5.  419,  455  J  a 
Radical  on  the  bounty  system,  419 

Frog,  attacked  by  a  mole,  300 

Fry,  Elizabeth,  36S 

Fuel  doles,  424-5 

'  Fying'  ditches  and  ponds,  ii,  80 


Gales,   great    destruction    of   trees 

by,  448-9 
Gales  and  high  tides  on  East  Coast, 

30,  31,  446 
Galvanised  roofs  for   stacks,  286-7, 

379 

Game-cock,  a  divorced,  281-2 

Game-preserving  :  poaching,  227-8  ; 
destruction  of  other  animal  life  a 
necessity  of,  232 

Gamekeepers,  attacks  on,  by  poach- 
ers, 228;  enmity  of  to  hawks,  231 

Garton,  Messrs.,  their  experiments' 
with  red  clovers  and  grasses,  373 


INDEX 


479 


Oarton's,  Limited,  prospectus,  304 

Gates,  repairs  to,  ii 

Gawdy,  Thomas,  6 

Gedge,  Rev.  J.  Denny,  23 

Gibbet  Common,  Bradenliam,  301 ; 

traditions  of,  355-6 
Gilling  trees,  213 
Glanville,  Roger  de  and   Gudruda, 

24 
Gnats,  316-7 
Goats,     destruction    of    forests    in 

Cyprus  by,  276 
Gorst,  Sir  J.,  203,  204 
Gostlings,  the,  5 
Governments      and      the      farming 

industry,  41,  170 
Grain,  see  Wheat,  &c. 
Grand  Juries,  376-7 
Grass,    vitality  of  in    cold  climates, 

211 

Grass-cutting  in  South  Africa,  77 
Grass  scarifier,    substitute   for,    129, 

130 
Grass  snake,  180 
Grazing  recently  laid  pastures,  16 
Great  Eastern  Railway  :  reduction  of 

rates  on  small  parcels  of  farm  and 

garden  produce,  411 
Grouse-shooting,  352 
'Gurneys,  the,  of  Earlham,'  368 


Hagan,  the  Thane,  4,  5 

Haling  root  crops,  375,  383,  385,  395, 

400,  402 
Hamilton,  Lady,  450 
Hams,  foreign,  sold  as  home  cured, 

193 
Hand  sowing  clover  seeds,  142 
Hangman's  Hill,  Coll,  355 
Hare  and  Rabbits  Bill,  the,  293 
Hares,  a  mad  hare  in  January,  45  j 

shooting,  385 
Harleston  market,  294 
Hartcup,  Mrs.  Jane,  20 
Hartshorne,  Mr.  Albert,  F.S.A.,  355 
Harvest  agreements,  285,  294-5,  337 
Harvest  moon,  the,  325 
Hauchet,  Thomas,  5 
Hawkins,     Mr.     Justice,     and     the 

Criminal  Evidence  Act,  403 


Hawks,  destruction  of,  by  game- 
keepers, 231,  232 

Hawthorns,  damage  done  to  by  boys, 
172-3 

Hay,  price  of,  172 

Hay  harvest,  238,  240,  245,  247, 
250,  253,  256,  261-6,  271-4,  277, 
286-8,  293 

Hay-making :  process  of  heaping 
into  cocks,  249 ;  in  South  Africa, 

n 

Hayricks,  overheating  of,  265  ;  build- 
ing, 266  ;  thatching,  282-4 

Heavy  land,  8,  10;  depreciation  in 
value  of,  9  ;  laying  down  pasture, 
12-17  ;  seed  mixture  for  pasture,  14 

Hebrides :  a  visit  to  the  Laird  of 
Coll,  389 ;  journey  from  Oban 
to  Coll,  340  ;  arrival  at  Coll  : 
drive  to  the  Castle,  34!  ;  farming 
in  Coll,  342  ;  a  day's  shooting, 
343  ;  the  Castle  and  the  tomb  of 
the  McLeans,  348-9  ;  the  Green 
Mountain  tumulus,  350 ;  peat 
drains,  351  ;  more  shooting  ex- 
peditions, 350-2,  357  ;  service  at 
Clabac  Presbyterian  Church,  352  ; 
the  great  stone  on  Benhogh,  353-5  ; 
Hangman's  Hill,  355 ;  ruins  of 
crofters'  houses,  356-7 ;  diffi- 
culties of  departure  from  Coll 
harbour,  357-8  ; 

Heckingham  Workhouse,  425  ;  past 
and  present  management,  426 ;  feed- 
ing of  young  children,  427  ;  condi- 
tion of  the  graveyard,  427-8  ;  the 
stoneyard,  431 

Hedenham,  4 

Hedenham  Rectory,  20 

Hedenham  Wood,  433 

Hedge-trimming,  61 

Heifers,  tradition  as  to  first  calves  of, 

47 
Henry  II,,  5,  23,  24 
Henry  VIIL,  5,  6 
Hens  with  strange  broods,  238-9 
Hertfordshire,  water  famine  in,  359  ; 

elTect  of  London  water  companies' 

operations,  359,  362 
High  tides,  damage  done  by,  30,  31, 

446,  447 


48o 


A  FARMER'S   YEAR 


Hindle,  213 

*  Hiring  shilling,'  the,  294 

Hogarth,  177 

Hollow  Hill,  108,  150,  217,  326 

Holly  Lodge,  223 

Holmes,  Mr.  Sancroft,  164,  168, 
174,  176,  184,  201,  205 

Home  Farm,  Ditchingham,  16, 17-9  ; 
acreage,  32,  36 ;  proportions  of 
arable  and  pasture,  37  ;  farming 
operations,  43-453  ;  balance-sheet, 
441 

Hood  (bailiff),  15,  47-8,  57,  83,  84, 
89,  92,  99,  105,  108,  114,  117, 
123,  125,  143,  145,  146,  149,  169, 
173,  179,  181,  185,  219,  220,  229, 
253.  256,  266,  272,  277,  285,  294, 

.  295,  302,  306,  307,  343,  351, 
371-2,  378,  382,   394,  395,  416, 

444 
Hood,  Mrs.,  98,  124 
Horse-breeding,  126-7 
Horse-sickness  in  South  Africa,  86, 

394 

Horsebee,  its  development  from  the 
egg,  315 

Horses,  intelligence  of,  85-7,  107, 
145-6,  185,  221  ;  an  African 
horse's  adventures,  224-5  5  smooth- 
barked  trees  gnawed  by,  276 ; 
poll-sickness,  426 

Horseshoe  on  tap-root  of  an  oak,  139 

Horton,  Mr.,  329 

Hours  of  labour  on  farms,  72 

'  Hoven,'  84  ;  see  '  Blowing ' 

Huntingfeld,  Roger  de,  24  ;  deed 
executed  by  (1295),  24-5  ;  seal  of, 
25-6 

Hurdles,  80,  142 


Iceland,  beauty  of  turf  in,  211; 
excavations  on  the  site  of  Bergs- 
thorsknoll,  211  ;  midnight  fishing  : 
a  memory,  362 

Iconoclasts  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, 257-8 

Indian  Civil  Service:  system  of 
forced  contributions  towards  pen- 
sions, 70 

Indian  com,  see  Maize 


Inoculation  of  pastures,  62 

Instinct  in  animals,  84-7,  92,  93,  95 

107,  145-6 
Insurance,  42,  68-9 
Ives,    Charlotte   (afterwards   wife   of 

Admiral     Sutton),    anecdotes    Of, 

29-30 
Ives,    Rev.     Mr.     and     Mrs.,    and 

Chateaubriand,  28-9 


Jackson,  Mr.  F.  J.,  wounded  at  the 
battle  of  Lubwa,  389-92  ;  his  herd 
of  cattle  destroyed   by  rinderpest, 

393 
Jeaffreson,  Mr.  John  Cordy,  150 
Jenner,  Dr.,  280 
John,  King  of  England,  5 
Johnson,  Dr.,  339,    340,    342,    351, 

353-4,  358 


Kensit,  Mr.,  269 

Kessingland,  washing  away  of  cliffs' 

at,    30-31  J    farming    at,    204-6 ; 

increase  of  beach  at,  447 
Kicking-strap,  danger  of  not   using, 

247 
King,    John,    account    (1738)   of   a 

mineral  spring  and  bath-house   in 

the  Vineyard  Hills,  20-22 
King's  Head  hotel,  Bungay,  sales  of 

by  auction,  lio,  ill,  113,229 
Knee-caps,  265 
Kohl-rabi,  60,  225,    253,    264,  273, 

365,  379 


Labour,  scarcity  of,  421-2,  459-69  ' 

Labourers,  see  Agricultural  labourers 

Lamb-hurdle,  142 

Lambs,  fall  of,  56-7,  89,  95,  96, 
125-6  ;  apparent  indifference  of  to 
cold,  102 ;  attacked  by  dogs,' 
142-3,  152;  a  wandering  stag  in 
the  fold,  143-4  ;  tail-cutting  and 
its  results,  146-8,  149-50,  151, 
156,  173;  prices,  207,  229,  402; 
weaning,  263 

Land,  clearing,  12 

*  Land -sucking,'  33 


INDEX 


481 


r.anrl  tax,  the,  456 

fvUiKlIord   ami  tenant,    3,    9-II,   17, 

32  5,  52-6,  61,  161,  310-12 
Landlords  :  repairs,  10,  161  ;  laying- 
down  pastures,   16,    17  ;   farms   in 

hand,  130 
Large  towns,  drift  of  farm  hands  to, 

11,   75.    170,   203,    338-9,  408-9, 

457,  459-69 
Largesse,  an  ancient  custom,  375-6 
Laying-down    pastures,     12-17,    62, 

100,  409 
Letting  farms,  3,  9,  12,  16 
Liberal  party,  the,  and  Local  Opt  it  n, 

112,  113 
«  Lift '  hurdle,  80 
Lightning,    strange    tricks    of,    318, 

321  ;   deaths    and    narrow  escapes 

from,  319-21 
Lightning  conductor,  a  broken,  319  ; 

'  earthed '  in  a  soda-water   bottle, 

319 
Little,  Mr.,  106 
Liverpool,  licensing  system  tried  at, 

113 
Loaders,  tales  of,  387-8,  406 
Local  Option  scheme,  objections  to, 

112 
Loddon  market,  219 
Lombe,  Rev.  Henry,  450 
London,  supersti.ion  in,  152-3 
Longman,  Mr.  Charles,  5,  358 
Lowestoft :  farm  hands  taking  service 

on  smack>^,   75,   76  ;  damage  done 

by  very  Ugh  tides,  447 
Lubwa,  battle  of,  389-92 


Macdonald,  Major,  392 
Macechern,  Rev.  D.,  352 
Machine  mowing,  149,  252,  256 
Machinery,  advantages  of,  264,   274, 

360 
'  Maffie,'  derivation  of,  312 
Magistrates,  see  Country  magistrates 
Magnates  and  merchant  princes,  166- 

68 
Maiden  lady  farmers,  310 
Maize,  289,  365  ;  as  fodder,  401 
Malt,  price  of,  172 
Mammon,  worship  of,  166 


Mangolds,  149,   187,  217,  250,  358, 

394 

Manure  and  manuring,  16,  35,  47, 
96,  98,  100,  108,  no,  116,  124, 
128,  132,  137,  187,  205,  213,  217, 
230,  249,  253,  262,  307,  314,  364, 
401,  439 

Mares  and  foals,  126,  134-7,  145, 
160,  179,  206,  302 

Margarine,  artificial  colouring  of: 
deputation  to  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board,  183-84  ;  unfair  com- 
petition with  home-made  butter, 
184,  191,  445,  456;  visit  to  a 
continental  factory  :  how  it  is  made, 
1 9 1-2 ;  large  profits  of  manu- 
facturers, 192 

Margitson,  Major  John,  9,  291 

'  Marine  dealers  '  (receivers  of  stolen 
eggs),  227-8 

Marriages,  decrease  of  in  rural  dis- 
tricts, 463 

Marryat,  Mr.  Frederick,  470 

Marsh  dock,  198 

Marsh  land,  harrowing,  134;  ruined 
by  tidal  rivers,  447 

Martins,  233,  286 

Mason,  Miss,  355 

Matabeles,  superstition  a  cause  of 
crime  among,  152 

*  Mawkins  '  105,  266 

May-day,  178 

Meade,  Captain,  21 

Meadowland,  harrowing,  128 

Meat,  effect  of  foreign  competition 
on  the  trade  in  English,  42,  41 1, 
440,  445,  455,  456,  470 

Merchant  princes,  167-8 

Meliin^ham  Castle,  331 

Metiingham  Church,  curious  .-keleton 
found  in,  329 

Mettingham  College,  331 

Mettingham  register  book,  a  jocular 
entry  in,  331 

Mice  in  wheat  stacks,  163 

Missionary  bazaar  at  Norwich,  152 

Moat  Farm,  Bedingham :  doubtful 
origin  of  name,  4  ;  nature  of  soil, 
7,  8,  10;  condition  when  taken  in 
hand,  10-12 ;  acreage  of  arable 
and  pasturage,  12,  13  ;  plan  of,  13; 
I  1 


432 


A    FARMER'S    YEAR 


laying  land  down  to  grass  to  reduce 
labour  bill,  14- 17  ;  cash  and  profit 
and  loss  accoimts,  39,  40,  43 ; 
draining,  43,  97,  109,  420 ;  the 
cattle-yard  and  stock,  64-5,  94, 
126,  213,  224,  282,  322,  405  ;  the 
growing  crops,  93,  98,  128,  198, 
213,  252-3,  378-9 ;  seed  drill- 
ing, 100,  103  ;  the  drinking-water, 
135  ;  results  of  thrashing,  163,  366  ; 
getting  in  the  hay,  263,  272,  287  ; 
harvest  agreement  and  the  harvest, 
295>  307,  327.  336  ;  annual  valua- 
tion, 381  ;  balance-sheet,  441 

Moles,  usefulness  of,  91  ;  stones 
thrown  up  by,  149  ;  frog  attacked 
by  a  mole,  300  ;  habits  of,  405-6 

Money,  influence  of  in  parliamentary 
elections,  165-9 

Moor-hens,  233 

Moore  (bailiff),  93,  97,  103,  109, 
128,  160,  225,  253,  272-3,  365, 
378,  394,  395,  420 

Moore,  junior,  365 

Moore,  Mrs.,  98,  394 

Moresco,  a  South  African  hunting 
horse,  cleverness  of,  85-7 

Morgan,  Rev.  Mr.,  vicar  of  Beding- 
ham,  240 

Mowing-machines,  damage  caused  to 
by  loose  stones,  149 

Mowing  recently  laid  pastures,  16 

'Muck  and  Misery  Farm,'  to 

Mustard  crops,  289,  365,  404 

Mutford  and  Lothingland  District 
Agricultural  Show,  prizes  won  at, 
351,  394,  417 


Natal,  Boer  family  caught  in  snow- 
storm, 303 

National  granaries,  apparent  opposi- 
sition  of  Governments  to,  179 

Nature,  the  education  of,  i  ;  the 
beauties  of,  19,  326,  383-4,  451- 
53;  contrasts  of  colour  in,  216; 
apparent  cruelly  of  the  natural 
laws  of  animal  life,  300,  301,  346  ; 
the  eternal  round  of,  378-9  ; 
varied  aspects  of,  420 

Naval  lieutenants  as  sportsmen,  387 


Nelson,  relics  of,  449  51 

Nelson  Club,  Norwich  (now  extinct), 

450 
New  York,  superstitious  practices  in, 

153 

New  Zealand  mutton  sold  as  Welsh, 
194 

Nightingales,  15'^,  157,  217 

Njal,  the  saga  of,  211 

Norfolk  Broads,  207-9 

Norfolk  Chamber  of  Agriculture,  407, 
408,  412  ;  the  rural  exodus  :  paper 
read  before  the,  4-9 

Norfolk  Club,  450 

'  Norfolk  covenants,'  34 

Norfolk,  Dukes  of,  28,  113,  114,  229 

Norfolk  red  polls  :  attempt  to  form 
a  small  herd  of  ped'gree  cattle,  48, 
58 ;  advantages  of  the  breed,  58, 
59 ;  points  against,  59 ;  milk- 
producing  powers  of,  59,  60  ; 
characteristics  of  a  first-class  ani- 
mal, 60  ;  progress  of  the  herd,  64, 
65,  248,  253  ;  sale  of  bullocks,  1 1 7, 
119,  382;  prices  obtained  for, 
213,  293 

Norfolk,  Roger,  Earl  of  (1240),  20 

North  Suffolk  Association  Show  :  first 
prize  given  to  Royal  Duke,  a 
Bedingham  ox,  365 

Norwich,  26  ;  missionary  bazaar  at, 
152 

Norwich  Agricultural  Show,  395  ;  the 
Queensland  Government  exhibit, 
396  ;  the  poultry,  398 

Norwich  Cattle  Market,  4C9 

Nunnery  Farm,  95 


Oak-trees,  cutting  down,  12  ; 
ruined  by  tenants,  311 

Oats,  128,  255  ;  prices  of,  172,  366  ; 
harvesting,  307,  322,  325,  327 

'Offhand'  farming,  lo-ii 

Old-age  pensions,  68  ;  insurance  by 
private  enterprise,  68-9 ;  State 
guarantee,  69 ;  unpopularity  with 
voters :  reluctance  of  Govern- 
ments to  undertake  it,  70  ;  report 
of  Ihe  first  Committee  appointed, 
266-7  ;    the    Unionist    party    and, 


INDEX 


483 


266,    267 ;    a    second  Committee 

appointed,  267 
Orchids,  wild,  195,  196,  253-4 
Osborn,  Sir  Melmoth,  death  of,  225 
Ostrich    farming   in   the   Transvaal, 

398,  399 
Ostriches,  wild,  400 
Outgoing  tenants,  '  valuation  '  due  to, 

34,  35 
Outney,  see  Bungay  Common 
Owls,  232-3,  313 
Oxen,    death    of  the    best   ox,    82  ; 

sickness     among,     83,    98,     128 ; 

instinct  of,  87  ;  poisoned  by  eating 

'  tulip   herb,'    in   Natal,   87 ;    see 

Cattle 


Pakefield,  washing  away  of  cliffs 
^-tj  30-31  ;  damage  caused  by  very 
high  tides,  447 

Parish  Councils,  118-9 

Parish  register- books,  extracts  from, 
241-5,  260,  331  ;  marks  of  ilhte- 
rates,  259 

'  Parishes,  the,'  125 ;  outbreak  of 
diphtheria,  135 

Parliamentary  county  elections,  157  ; 
selection  of  candidates,  157  ;  ques- 
tions influencing  voters,  158,  164  5, 
168 ;  qualifications  for  candidates, 
164,  194  ;  election  fictions,  164-5, 
194  ;  blackmailing  '  candidates, 
165  ;  the  power  of  money,  165-8  ; 
personal  canvassing,  185 

Partridge  eggs,  systematic  stealing 
of,  227-8 

Partridges,  89,  254 ;  shooting,  328, 
336,  347,  351 

Paston,  John,  quoted,  6 

Pasture,  laying  down,  12- 17,  62,  100, 
409  ;  seed  mixture  for  heavy  lands, 
14 ;  mowing  and  grazing  recently 
laid,  16  ;  permanent,  60,  187,  225  ; 
establishing  by  a  system  of  inocula- 
tion, 62;  brushing,  128,  129,  141, 
149  ;  draining,  133  ;  sowing  with 
clover  seed,  141  ;  rolling,  145  ; 
sheeping,  261 

Peachey  (ploughman),  47,  64,  158, 
216,  234,  240,  262,  332,  452 


Pease,  96,   132,   156,  255,  293,307; 
price    of,     172;   harvesting,    307, 

3I5>  317 
Peat  drains,  351 
Pedlar,  curios  purchased  from  a,  239, 

450 

Peewits,  208,  451 

Peppeicorn,  Mr.,  265 

Pepys,  177 

Permanent  pasture,  60,  187,  225 

Pharaoh's  granaries,  179 

Pheasants,  mischievousness   of,   187  ; 

preserving,  232-3  ;   shooting,   46, 

373,  381,^433 
Pigeons,    damage   effected   by,    266, 

273 
Pigs,  159,  394  ;  prices  obtained  for, 

220-21  ;  profit  on  rearing,  221 
Pipe-draining,  133,  420,  421 
Pirnho,  William  de,  20 
Pit-holes,  clearing  out,  1 1 
Ploughing  :  duration  of  plough  breast 

and  share,  47  ;  the  art  of,   106-7  5 

difficulty  of  in  seasons  of  drought, 

365,  367 
Poaching,  227-8  ;  attacks  on  keepers 

by  poachers,  228 
Poisoned   wheat,    danger    of    using, 

91 
Police  Court  Mission,  the,  433 
Poll-sickness  in  horses,  426 
Pond   water   for  drinking    purposes, 

135 
Ponds,  cleaning  out,  11 
Pony,    exhibition   of    temper   by   a, 

264 
Poor  Law    relief,    in    rural   districts, 

432 
Poppies,  63,  132,  293,  307 
Potatoes,  planting,  16 1 
Primrose   League,  fete  of  the  Ditch- 

ingham  Habitation,  292 
Pringle,  Mr.  Hunter,  462 
Protection,  see  Free  Trade 
Provincial  race  meetings,  154-^5 


Queen's  nurses  :  a  boon  to  rural  dis- 
tricts, 424 

Queensland  as  an  emigration  field, 
396-8 


484 


A   FARMER'S    YEAR 


Rabbit-pie,  illness  caused  by,  388 

Rabbit-Shooting,  385-7 

Rabbits,  damage  done  by,  293,  388, 

401  ;   hunted   by  a   stoat,  30T  ;  a 

harvest  hunt,  314 
Railway  charges :    preferential  rates 

on   foreign  products,    41-2,    411  ; 

prohibitory  charges  for  carriage  to 

home  growers,  410,  411 
Rams,  difficulty  of  keeping  with  small 

flocks,  96-7  ;  Southdown,  123 
Rates  and  taxes  on  land,  41 
Read,    Mr.    Clare   Sewell,  62,    445, 

468 
Reaping  machine,  American,  273-4; 

rent  for  hire  of,  285  ;  purchase  of, 

294-5  J  labour  saved   by,    307-8  ; 

failure  of  in   beaten  down  barley, 

332 
Red   poll    cattle,    see    Norfolk    red 

polls 
« Red  Poll  Herd  Book,'  59,  60 
Red  weed  (poppies),  63,   132,    293, 

307 

Reeve  (woodman),  137 

Rent  audit,  a,  49  ;  the  dinner,  53-6 

Rents,  3,  35,  37,  40,  41,  42 

Repairs,  cost  of,  161,  310 

Rew,  Mr.  Henry,  333,  461 

Ricketts,  Mr.,  194 

Rinderpest,  fearful  ravages  of  in 
Africa,  392-4  ;  description  of  its 
symptoms,  393 ;  an  eighteenth- 
century  English  prayer  for  deliver- 
ance from,  393 

*  Ringhals,'  Boer  name  for  the  cobra, 
181 

Road  grit,  value  of  as  manure,  401 -2 

Robson  (carpenter),  222,  234,  256 

'  Roger's  Blast,'  local  name  for  small 
whirlwind,  159 

Rogerson,  Rev.  Mr.,  rector  of 
Denton,  Norfolk,  244 

Rolling  pastures,  145 

Roofing  of  cattle-yards,  94,  234,  256, 
366,- 379,  412 

Rooi  Point,  South  Africa,  farming  at, 
76-8,  86 

Rooks,  damage  effected  by,  105,  278, 

451 
Root  crops,  manuring  for,  128,  1 32-3, 


137,  148 ;  ploughing  for,  132 ; 
haling,  223,  375,  395,  400,  425  ; 
see  Beet,  &c. 

Rose,  Mr.  (magistrate),  193,  194 

*  Rough  Jimmy,'  172,  182,  186,  283 

Royal  Agricultural  Benevolent  In- 
stitution, 305,  417 

Royal  Agricultural  Society,  investiga- 
tions undertaken  by  for  farmers,  316 

Rumburgh,  cost  of  repairs  on  farm  at, 
161 

Rural  districts,  decrease  of  population 
in,  440,  459-69 

Rural  exodus,  the,  a  paper  read 
before  the  Norfolk  Chamber  of 
Agriculture,  459-69  ;  official  statis- 
tics, 46 1-2 ;  private  testimony, 
461-4;  the  causes  and  remedies, 
464-9  ;  national  importance  of  the 
subject,  466,  468  ;  effect  of  on  large 
towns,  466 

Rural  life  :  a  retrospect,  323-5 

Rye,  planting,  369 


St.  Swithun's-day,  273 

Sale  of  Food  and  Drugs  Bill,  456 

Sand  martins,  234 

Saumarez,  Lord  de,  38 

Scarecrows,  105,  266 

School  Board  prosecutions,  202-3 

Scott,  Mr.,  murdered  by  Soudanese 

mutineers,  392 
Scudamore,  Mrs.,  231  ;  chancel  roof 

of  Ditchingham  Church  painted  by, 

232 
Scudamore,  Rev.  W.  E.,  231 
Sea,  encroachments  of  on  East  Coast, 

30,  31,  447 
Sea  power  of  England,  380 
Sea  shells    and   sand  at   bottom   ot 

wells,  18 
Seed-drills,  96 
Seed  mixture  for  heavy  pasture  lands. 

Seed,  vitality  of,  199,  200 

Sheep,  Southdown  and  Suffolk  breeds, 
57,  123  ;  feeding,  63,  404  ;  value  as 
fertilisers  of  soil,  64,  100,  261  ;  in- 
stinct of,  92-3,  95,  229;  sufferings 
of,  from  flies,  102-3  5  ailments  of, 


INDEX 


485 


156,  173  ;  prices  obtained  for,  220, 
307  ;  attacked  by  dogs,  245,  405  ; 
treading  of  land  by,  263  ;  purchase 
of  Southdowns,  306  ;  advantages  of 
keeping,  444 

Sheep-dipping,  description  of,  234-5 

Sheep-shearers,  215-6 

Sheep  shearing,  description  of,  214-6 

Sheep's  fleece,  weight  of,  216 

Sheeping  pastures,  261-2 

Sheltons,  the,  5 

Shooting  and  shooters,  anecdotes  of, 
343>  374,  381,  386-8,  406;  be- 
haviour of  wild  animals  during  a 
beat,  433-7  ;  monetary  benefit  of 
the  sport  to  rural  districts,  437 ; 
its  sociability,  438 

Shooting  rights,  hiring  of,  38 

Showyard,  rearing  cattle  for  the,  64, 
65,   136,  213,  253,  365,  395,  412, 

417,  439 

Sime,  Mr.,  329 

Simmons,  Mr.  G.  J.,  411 

Simpson,  Mr.  Robert,  161,  310,  311 

Simpson,  Mr.  William,  9,  48,  381 

Skinner,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  tenants  of 
Denton  farm,  291 

Smith,  Mr.  Henry,  146,  317,  318 

Snakes,  180,  181,  196-8 

Snipe-shooting,  346 

Snow  storms,  103,  105,  108,  124-5 

Society  for  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 
Animals,  410 

Soldier,  visit  to  a  bedridden,  418 

Soulbay  (or  Solebay),  old  name  for 
Southwold,  in  Suffolk,  242 

South  Africa,  farming  in,  76-8,  %(i, 
87  ;  horse-sickness  in,  %()y  394 ; 
adventure  with  a  cobra  in  the 
Transvaal,  180;  an  episode  of  the 
Zulu  war,  225  ;  hawks  in,  231  ; 
risks  of  tree-planting,  276 ;  sad 
scene  on  the  veld,  303 ;  ostrich 
farming  in  the  Transvaal,  398,  399 

South  Norfolk  parliamentary  election, 
157  ;  the  rival  candidates,  163-4, 
168;  a  misunderstanding,  174; 
candidates'  meetings,  176-7,  194, 
200,  201  ;  canvassing,  185-7  ; 
anecdote  of  the  Radical  candidate, 
194  ;  result  of,  205 


Southdown  sheep,  see  Sheep 
Southwold,  damage  caused  by  very 

high  tides,  447 
Sparrow  clubs,  90 
Sparrow  pest,  the,  89-91,  146,  217, 

236,  278,  313 
Sparrow  traps,  90 
Spexhall,  53,  63 
Squirrels,  236 
Stack  building,  inferiority  ot  modern, 

338,  405  ;  in  Hertfordshire,  361 
Stacks,  galvanised  roofs  for,  286-7 
Standing  crops,  sale  of,  459 
Stanhow  family,  the,  5 

*  Stark-Naked  Farm,'  10 
Starlings,  damage  done  by,  146 
Steam-sawing,  213-4,  221,  234,  238 
Steam-thrashing,  104-5 

Stephen,  King  of  England,  23 

Stephens's  '  Book  of  the  Farm,'  60, 
250 

Stewart,  Col.  Lome,  339,  349 

Stickland,  Mr.  W.  H.,  25 

Stivens,  Dr.  Lyne,  198 

Stoat,  rabbit  hunted  by,  301 

Stock,  at  Ditchingham,  32  ;  manage- 
ment of,  382  ;  see  Cattle 

Stones  on  farm  lands,  178 

Stones,  the,  5 

Store  cattle,  risks  of  buying,  83,  84, 
89,  106,  109 ;  unremunerative  to 
the  farmer,  189 

Stow  Park,  18 

Straw,  price  of,  172 

Stutvile,  Nicholas  de,  5 

Suckling,  quoted,  23,  331 

*  Suffolk  covenants,'  34 

Suicides,  ancient  practice  with  regard 

to,  237 
Summer  fallowing,  312 
Sunstroke,  332  ;  power  of  the  sun  in 

England,  332 
Superstition  in  England  and  America, 

1 52-3 ;    among   uncivilised   races, 

152 
Surface  drains,  12 
Sutton,  Mrs.,  see  Ives,  Charlotte 
Swallows,    217,    233,    235-6,    286  ; 

nesting  in  porch,  218,  226-7,  290 
Swans,  wild,  222 
Swede-baulking,  187 


486 


A  FARMER'S    YEAR 


Swedes,  82,  149,  206,  212-3,  253, 
255.  286,  336,  358;  cutting  out, 
278 ;  lifting  and  haling,  421  ; 
uncertainty  of  crops,  452 

Swifts,  239 


Taia,  Egyptian  queen,  bust  of,  pur- 
chased from  a  pedlar,  239  ;  golden 
ring  of,  239 

Taxation  on  land,  41,  42 

Tenant  farmers:  repairs,  ii  ;  laying 
down  pastures.  16,  17;  an  instance 
of  superhuman  virtue,  52 ;  a 
seventy-seven  years'  tenancy,  53  ; 
farming  with  insufficient  capital, 
149;  in  the  year  1560,  290,  291  ; 
good  and  bad,  310-12;  the 
modern  tenant,  446 

Thatching  comb,  283 

Thatching  haystacks,  description  of 
process,  282-4 

Thistles,  214,  216,  225,  293 

Thorn  scrub,  rapid  spread  of,  62 

Thrashing,  102,  163,  366,  376,  378 

Threshers  and  whale,  fight  between, 
299,  300 

Thrushes,  235 

Thruston,  Major,  murdered  by 
Soudanese  mutineers,  392 

*  Thwarting,'  95 

Tides,  phenomenal,  30-31 

'Tied  houses,'  71;  evils  of  the 
system,  110-13;  quality  of  beer 
sold  at,  no,  III,  113;  suggested 
remedy  for  the  evil,  112 

Tile-draining,  66,  79 

Timber-gill  ing,  185,  187,  201 

Timber  :  steam  sawing,  213-4,  221, 
234>  238 ;  effects  of  excessive  strain 
on,  318 ;  prohibitory  charge  for 
railway  carriage,  411 

'  Times,'  the,  on  the  margarine  trade, 
184  ;  agricultural  summary  in,  446 

Tindale  Wood,  38,  46,  238,  385, 
433,  436 

Tithes,  diminishing  value  of,  9,  454 

Toads,  a  tame  trio,  295-9  5  their  food 
and  method  of  feeding,  296-8 ; 
length  of  life,  29S 

Toadstools,  226 


Tobacco,  reduction  of  duty  on,  168-9 
Tramps  :    the  granite  breaking  test, 

431  ;  a  *  master  rogue,'  431 
Transvaal,  adventure   with   a  cobra, 

180  ;  ostrich  farming  in  the,  398, 

399 

Trees  :  cutting,  119-22  ;  growth  of, 
1 2 1-2  ;  treatment  of,  122  ;  felling, 
137-41  ;  growing  from  old  stumps, 
141  ;  ravages  of  animals  among 
saplings,  275-6,  294 ;  ruined  by 
tenants,  311-2;  shedding  of 
boughs  by  elms,  382  ;  destroyed  by 
gales,  448-9 

Trout  stream,  making  a,  362 

Tuberculosis  in  cows  :  the  tuberculin 
test,  369 ;  need  of  Government 
inspectors,  369 

'  Tulip,'  a  Natal  herb  fatal  to  cattle, 

87 
Turk  Taylor,  429,  430 
Turkeys,    cruelty   of  to   other  fowl, 

115;   an  egg-eating  hen,    183;    a 

courtship  scene,  187 
Turnips,  206,  240,    284,    289,    306, 

307  ;  the  crop  at  Bedingham,  380 
Tusser,   Thomas,    quoted,     I,     143, 

272,  290-91,  444 
Twitch -grass,  difficulty  of  eradicating, 

133,   155-6,  240 


Udedales,  the,  5  ;  Sir  John  de 
Udedale,  6 

Unexhausted  improvements,  com- 
pensation for,  34 

University  Missions  to  Central  Africa, 
270 

Upland  Hall,  19 

Upp  Hall,  Hertfordshire,  358  ;  a 
water  famine,  358 ;  system  of 
farming,  360  ;  method  of  deepening 
wells,  361  ;  converting  a  coarse- 
fish  river  into  a  trout  stream, 
362 

Upper  Engadine,  school  attendance 
in  the,  204 


Vaccination,  instances  of  its  efficacy 
in  South  America,  281 


INDEX 


487 


Vaccination   Bill,  the :   conscientious 

objections,  279-80  • 
Valpy,  the  Rev.  J.,  411 
'  Valuations  '  due  to  outgoing  tenants, 

34-5 
Vandyke,  224 
Venezuela,    small-pox    epidemic    in, 

281 
Vetches,  221,  262,  314,  325,  369 
Villages,  water  supply  of,  135-6 
Vineyard    Hills,    21,    91,   loi,    120, 

149,  157,  163,  196,  212,  234,  246, 

432 
Vipers,    instance    of    poisoning  by, 

196-8 


Wages  of  farm  labourers,  72-3,  117, 
285,  376,  416,  465,  467,  470 

Walsingham,  Lord,  374,  387-8  ;  on 
the  rural  exodus,  463 

Warner,  Mr.  Lee,  407 

Water  hemlock,  306 

Water-supply  of  farms  and  villages, 
135-6;    famine   in   Hertfordshire, 

359 
Water-wagtails,  236  ;  feeding  young 

cuckoo,  309 
Waveney,  the,    17-9,    21,   26,    233, 

274,  308,  326 
Weaning  lambs,  263 
Weather,   influence   of   on   tempera- 
ment, 134 
Weatherley,  Colonel,  killed,  with  his 

younger    son,    in   the    Zulu   war, 

225 
Websdill  Wood,   12,    13,    121,   196, 

198,  225,  253,  263 
Wedding  party,  accident  to  a,  247 
Weeds,  8,  33,  35,  81-2,  198-9,  212, 

219,    222,    225,    230,    248,    277, 

'293 
Weight   of  live   stock,    difficulty    of 

estimating,  119,  282 
Wells,  sea  sand  and  shells  at  bottom 

of,     18 ;      ingenious     method     of 

deepening,  361 
Wensum,  the,  26 
Whale  and  threshers,  299,  300 
Wheat    condition  of  growing   crops, 

93,  128,  137,   169-70,  198,  212-3, 


255.  289,  307,  334,  374,  378, 
401  ;  fluctuating  prices  of,  109, 
158,  169-70,   172,   179,   185,  222, 

333-4,  337»  445.  455»  467  ; 
harvesting,  313,  315,  322,  325, 
327  ;  sale  of  standing  crops,  459 

Wheat  stacks,  mice  in,  163 

Wheat  supply :  small  bulk  stored  in 
England :  danger  in  case  of  war, 
179-80  ;  percentage  home-grown 
and  imported,  333  ;  decrease  of 
acreage  in  United  Kingdon,  333 ; 
effect  of  prices  on,  333-4  ;  a 
possible  shortage  in  the  world's 
supply,  334-5 ;  effect  of  Free 
Trade  on  prices,  413  ;  the  question 
of  a  bounty,  413-6,  419,  455 

Whitrup  (ploughman),  137,  149,  223, 
284,  365 

Wild  bird  preserve,  making  a,  27-8, 
150-51,  161 

Willows,  young,  stripped  of  bark  by 
cattle,  275 

Wilson,  Mr.,  murdered  by  Soudanese 
mutineers,  392 

Winchilsea,  Lord,  death  of,  335 

Winter,  terrors  of,  to  our  forefathers, 
371 

Women,  as  farm  labourers,  250,  251  ; 
treatment  of  among  African  tribes, 

251 

Woodcock  shooting,  388,  436,  437 

Woodlands,  management  of,  80 

Wood-pigeons,  236,  370 

Woodton  Church,  description  of, 
256-9 ;  alabaster  monument  to 
Anne  Suckling  in  chancel,  258 ; 
the  registers,  259,  260 ;  curious 
epitaphs,  260 

Woodton  Hall,  256-7,  261 

Wool,  weight  of  ewe's  fleece,  216  ; 
prices  of,  220,  445,  455 

Workhouses  in  rural  districts,  425  ; 
a  visit  to  Heckingham  Workhouse, 
425-8,  431  ;  want  of  cheerfulness 
in,  428  ;  aspect  of  the  inmates, 
428-9,  430  ;  shrinkage  in  their 
numbers,  429 ;  the  outdoor  relief 
system,  429  ;  hatred  of  the  poor 
for  '  the  House,'  429,  430,  432  ; 
Depwade  Union  Workhouse,  432 


488 


A   FARMER'S   YEAR 


Year,  the  farmer's : 
January  :  mildness  of  the  season, 
45.  49.  79.  88,  95;  preparing 
land  for  sowing,  46-8,  60,  64, 
79,  80,  88,  95,  96 ;  inspection 
and  management  of  live  stock, 
47.  56-60,  63,  64,  82,  87,  89, 
95,  96  ;  ditching,  fencing,  and 
draining,  48,  61,  65,  76,  78,  97  ; 
the  rent  audit,  49-56 ;  first 
lambs,  56,  89  ;  new  pastures,  61  ; 
reserving  a  bullock  for  the  Christ- 
mas show,  64  ;  death  of  the  best 
ox,  82  ;  ploughing  barley  land, 
88  ;  old  saws  referring  to  the 
month,  99 

February  :  drilling  oats  and  barley, 
loi,  103,  120  ;  Candlemas  Day  : 
weather  proverbs,  102  ;  frosts, 
snow,  and  hail  storms,  103,  105, 
108,  1 14-6;  sale  of  cattle  to 
the  butcher,  106,  117  ;  amateur 
ploughing,  106 ;  carting  yard 
litter  to  the  fields,  108,  no; 
sale  of  wheat,  109;  misfortunes 
among  the  live  stock,  1 14 ; 
County  Council  election,  117 

March  :  severity  of  the  weather  : 
partial  suspension  of  farming 
operations,  124  ;  a  good  fall  of 
lambs,  126  ;  three  mares  in  foal, 
126 

April:  frosts,  high  winds,  and 
rain  storms,  128,  129,  132,  137, 
1565  159.  174;  work  on  the 
arable  lands,  132-4,  137,  141, 
145,  148,  15s,  158,  161,  173; 
first  signs  of  spring,  133,  149, 
162 ;  the  pastures,  133,  141, 
149,  156  ;  the  Bedingham  drink- 
ing water,  135  ;  condition  of  the 
show  bullock,  136  ;  tree  cutting 
and  felling,  137  ;  lambs  killed 
by  a  dog,  142,  152;  Easter 
vestry  meeting,  144  ;  foals  and 
calves,  145,  146,  160,  162  ;  tail- 
cutting  :  loss  of  lambs,  146-50  ; 
a  missionary  bazaar,  152  ;  Bun- 
gay Races,  154  ;  increasing 
price  of  wheat,  158,  169 

May  :  uncertainty  of  the  weather. 


178,  180,  182,  184,  187,  196, 
201,  206,  207  ;  a  further  rise  in 
wheat,  179  ;  snakes  and  snake 
bites,  180,  196-8  ;  an  egg-eating 
turkey,  183  ;  gilling  timber,  185  ; 
sales  of  cattle  and  lambs,  187, 
206-7  J  ^ow  price  of  butter,  189  ; 
South  Norfolk  election,  200, 
201,  205  ;  increase  of  labourers' 
wages,  204  ;  backward  state  of 
crops,  206  ;  May  sayings,  210 

Jtijie  :  progress  of  vegetation,  212, 
216-7,  223,  225,  246,  252-3  ; 
thunder  storms,  213,  229,  245, 
247  J  the  show  bullock,  213, 
253  ;  sale  of  cattle,  pigs,  and 
lambs,  213,  220,  229;  a  frost, 
213  ;  work  on  land  and  crops, 
213,  214,  219,  222-5,  230,  234, 
238,  240,  245,  247,  249  ;  steam 
sawing  timber,  213,  221,  238  ; 
shearing  sheep,  214-6  ;  fall  in 
wheat,  222  ;  pasture  lands, 
225-6,  252  ;  sheep  dipping, 
234 ;  hay  harvesting,  249,  250, 
252 

Jtdy  :  condition  of  the  crops,  255, 
284,  286,  289  ;  unseasonableness 
of  the  weather,  256,  270,  277-8, 
284,  290;  the  hay  harvest,  256, 
261-6,  271-4,  277,  286-8; 
sheeping  pastures,  260  ;  weaning 
the  lambs,  263  ;  general  farm 
work,  264,  278,  284,  289  ;  stack 
building  and  thatching,  265,  271, 
272,  282-4,  286-7  ;  young  wil- 
lows destroyed  by  live  stock, 
274-6  ;  St.  Swithun's-day,  277  ; 
sale  of  steers,  282  ;  visit  to  Den- 
ton Farm,  290 

August :  variations  in  the  weather, 
292,  301.  306,  308,  312, 314,  317, 
325 ;  end  of  the  hay  harvest, 
293 ;  the  growing  crops,  293, 
301,  307  ;  sale  of  red  poll  heifers, 
293  ;  the  harvest  bargain,  294-5  ; 
purchase  of  a  reaper,  295  ;  death 
of  a  foal,  302,  316  ;  new  South- 
down sheep  and  rams,  306  ;  the 
grain  harvest,  307,  312,  317, 
322 ;    visiting    outlying     farms, 


INDEX 


489 


310,  317  ;  a  rabbit-hunt,  314  ; 
the  harvest  moon,  325 

September:  Bungay  Brewster  Ses- 
sions, 327  ;  continuing  the  har- 
vest, 327,  332,  336;  partridge- 
shooting,  328,  336  ;  the  heat 
and  the  drought,  329,  332,  335, 
358;  bulk  of  the  crops,  331, 
336  ;  stack  building,  338  ;  end 
of  harvest :  a  trip  to  the  Hebrides, 
339  ;  prizes  vv^on  at  the  agricul- 
tural shows,  351  ;  visit  to  Upp 
Hall,  Hertfordshire,  358-63 

October  :  the  continued  drought : 
state  of  crops  and  stock,  364 ; 
trying  to  plough,  365,  367 ; 
results  of  first  thrashings,  366, 
376  ;  a  sitting  pheasant,  367  ; 
rain  at  last,  368,  370 ;  a  heifer 
in  difficulties  with  her  first  calf, 

371  ;  death  of  an  aged  relative, 

372  ;  sale  of  red-poll  cows,  373  ; 
pheasant-shooting :  a  big  bag, 
373 ;  largesse :  a  quaint  old 
song,  375-6 ;  fall  in  wages,  376  ; 
serving  on  the  Norwich  Grand 
Jury,  376 

November  :  a  dissatisfied  labourer, 
378  ;  sprouting  of  the  new  wheat 
and  beans,  378  ;  the  root  crops, 


379,  395,  400 ;  the  annual  valu- 
ation, 381  ;  shooting  the 
coverts,  381,  385-8 ;  manage- 
ment of  stock  :  a  change  of 
policy,  382 ;  sale  of  barley,  389  ; 
death  of  a  Southdown  ram,  394  ; 
a  visit  to  Norwich  Show,  395  ; 
sale  of  lambs,  402  ;  the  wheat 
rick  at  All  Hallows,  405  ;  pur- 
chase of  steers,  405 
December  :  meeting  of  the  Norfolk 
Chamber  of  Agriculture,  407 ; 
gales  and  mild  weather,  407, 
411,  417,  421,  425,  447,  451, 
452  ;  visit  to  Norwich  cattle 
market,  409  ;  progress  of  farm 
work,  411,  417,  420,  425,  432  ; 
Free  Trade  :  a  newspaper  con- 
troversy, 412  ;  the  show  bullock  : 
first  prize  at  Lothingland  Show, 
417  ;  sale  of  cattle,  417  ;  visit 
to  Heckingham  Workhouse, 
425  ;  shooting,  433-8  ;  the  first 
frosts,  438,  453  ;  balance-sheets, 
44 1 -2  ;  the  year's  results,  442 


Zulu  war,  sad  incident  of,  225 
Zulus,    apparent    insensibility    of  to 
pain,  174 


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Trevelyan.— England  in  the  Age  of 
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8vo. ,  3^.  6d. 

FOREIGN  COURTS  AND  FOREIGN 
HOMES.  ByA,  M.F.  Crown  8vo., 
6s. 


6      LOATGMANS  AND  C6:s  STAMDAkb  AMD  GENERAL  WoRft}^. 


Biography,  Personal  Memoirs,  &c. — continued. 

Fox.— The  Early  History  OF  Charles  ;  Morris.— The     Life     of     William 

Morris.  By  J.  W.  Mackail.  With 
6  Portraits  and  i6  Illustrations  by  E.  H. 
New.     2  vols.     8vo.,  32^. 

Palgrave.— Francis  Turner  Pal- 
grave  :  his  Journals,  and  Memories  of 
his  Life.  By  Gvvenllian  F.  Pal- 
grave. With  Portrait  and  Illustra- 
tion.    8vo.,  lay.  6d. 

Place.— The  Life  of  Francis  Place, 
1771-1854.  By  Graham  Wallas, 
M.A.     With  2  Portraits.     Bvo.,  i2J. 

Powys.— Passages  from  the  Diaries 
OF  Mrs.  Philip  Lybbe  Powys,  of 
Hardwick  House,  Oxon.,  1756-1808. 
Edited  by  Emily  J.  Climenson.  With 
2  Pedigrees  (Lybbe  and  Powys)  and 
Photogravure  Portrait.     8vo.,   16s. 

RAMAKRlSHtiA :  His  Life  and 
Sayings.  By  the  Right  Hon.  F.  Max 
MUller.     Crown  8vo.,  55. 

Reeve.— Memoirs  of  the  Life  and 
Correspondence  of  Henry  Reeve, 
C.B.,  late  Editor  of  the  'Edinburgh 
Review'.  By  John  Knox  Laughton, 
M.A.  With  2  Portraits.  2  vols.  8vo.,28j. 

Romanes.— The  Life  and  Letters 
of  George  John  Romanes,  M.A., 
LL.D.,  F.R.S.  Written  and  Edited 
by  his  Wife.  With  Portrait  and  2 
Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo. ,  6s. 

Seebohni.— The  Oxford  Reformers 
—John  Colet,  Erasmus  and  Thomas 
More  :  a  History  of  their  Fellow- Work, 
By  Frederic  Seebohm.     8vo.,  14s. 

Shakespeare.— Outlines  of  the 
Life  of  Shakespeare.  By  J.  O. 
Halliwell-Phillipps.  With  Illustra- 
tions and  Facsimiles.  2  vols.  Royal  8vo., 
2 1  J. 


James  Fox.     By  the  Right  Hon.  Sir  G. 
O.  Trevelyan,  Bart. 

Library  Edition.     8vo. ,  185. 
'  Silver   Library '    Edition.      Crown 
8vo. ,  3J.  6d. 

Halifax.— The  Life  and  Letters  of 
Sir  George  Savile,  Baronet,  First 
Marquis  of  Halifax.  By  H.  C. 
Foxcroft.     2  vols.    8vo. ,  36J. 

Hamilton.— Life  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton.  By  R.  P.  Graves.  8vo. 
3 vols.  155.  each.  Addendum.  8vo.,6^. 
sewed. 

Havelock.— Memoirs  of  Sir  Henry 
Havelock,  K.C.B.  By  John  Clark 
Marshman.     Crown  8vo. ,  3J.  td. 

Ha^^reis.— My  Musical  Life.  By  the 
Rev.  H.  R.  Haweis.  With  Portrait  of 
Richard  Wagner  and  3  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo. ,  75.  dd. 

Hiley.— Memories  of  Half  a  Cen- 
tury. By  the  Rev.  W.  R.  HiLEY, 
D.D.,  Vicar  of  Wighill,  Tadcaster. 
With  Portrait.     8vo.,  I5J-. 

Jackson.— Stonewall  Jackson  and 
THE  American  Civil  War.  By 
Lieut. -Col.  G.  F.  R.  Henderson. 
With  ^  Portraits  and  33  Maps  and 
Plans.     2  vols.     8vo.,  42J, 

Leslie.— The  Life  and  Campaigns  of 
Alexander  Leslie,  First  Earl  of 
Leven.  By  Charles  Sanford  Terry, 
M.A.   With  Maps  and  Plans.    8vo.,  165. 

Luther.— Life  of  Luther.  By 
Julius  Kostlin.  With  62  Illustrations 
and  4  Facsimilies  of  MSS.  Crown  8vo., 
3J.  6d. 

Macaulay.— The  Life  and  Letters 
of  Lord  Macaulay.  By  the  Right 
Hon,  Sir  G.  O.  Trevelyan,  Bart., 
Popular  Edit,  i  vol.  Cr.  8vo. ,  2J.  6d. 
Student's  Edition,  i  vol,  Cr.  8vo. ,  ds. 
Cabinet  Edition.  2  vols.  Post8vo.,i2j. 
'  Edinburgh  Edition. '     2  vols.     8vo. , 

6j.  each. 
Library  Edition.     2  vols.     8vo. ,  36J. 

Marbot.— The  Memoirs  of  the  Baron 
de  Marbot.  Translated  from  the 
French.     2  vols.     Crown  8vo.,  75. 

Max  Miiller. — Auld  Lang  Syne.   By 

the    Right    Hon.    F.    Max    Muller. 

First  Series.  With  Portrait.  8vo.,  \os.6d. 

Second  Series.     My  Indian  Friends. 

8vo. ,  10s.  6d. 


Shakespeare's  True  Life.    By  Jas. 

Walter.     With  500  Illustrations  by 

Gerald  E.  Moira.     Imp.  8vo.,  21J. 
Stanley  (Lady). 

The  Girlhood  of  Maria  Josepha 
Holroyd  (Lady  Stanley  of  Alderly). 
Recorded  in  Letters  of  a  Hundred 
Years  Ago,  from  1776-1796.  Edited 
by  J.  H.  Adeane.  With  6  Portraits. 
8vo,,  1 8 J. 

The  Early  Married  Life  of  Maria 
Josepha,  Lady  Stanley,  from 
1796.  Edited  by  J.  H.  Adeane. 
With  10  Portraits  and  3  Illustrations. 
8vo..  i8.f. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.     7 


Biography,  Personal  Memoirs,  &c. — continued, 

Turgot.— The    Life   and  Writings  |  Verney.— Memoirs  of  the  Verney 
OF    Turcot,    Comptroller-General    of       Family — continued. 


France,  1774-1776.  Edited  for  English 
Readers  by  W.  Walker  Stephens. 
With  Portrait.     8vo.,  -js.  6d. 

Verney.— Memoirs  of  the  Verney 
Family.  Compiled  from  the  Letters 
and  Illustrated  by  the  Portraits  at  Clay- 
den  House. 

Vols.  L  and  IL  During  the  Civil 
War.  By  Frances  Parthenope 
Verney.  With  38  Portraits,  Wood- 
cuts and  Facsimile.     Royal  Bvo.,  42J. 


Vol.  III.  During  the  Common- 
wealth. 1650- 1660.  By  Margaret 
M.  Verney.  With  10  Portraits,  &c. 
Royal  Bvo,,  21J. 

Vol.  IV.    From  the  Restoration  to 

the  Revolution.      1660  to  1696. 

By  Margaret  M.  Verney.     With 

Portraits.     Royal  8vo.,  sij-. 

Wellington.— Life  of  the  Duke  of 

Wellington.      By  the    Rev.   G.    R. 

Gleig,  M.A.     Crown  8vo.,  3^.  6d. 


Travel  and  Adventure,  the  Colonies,  &c. 

Brassey  (The  late  Lady). 


Arnold.- Seas  and  Lands.  By  Sir 
Edw^in  Arnold.  With  71  Illustrations. 
Crown  Bvo.,  3J.  6d. 

Baker  (SirS.  W.). 

Eight  Years  in  Ceylon.  With  6 
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The  Rifle  and  the  Hound  in  Cey- 
lon. With  6  Illustrations.  Cr.  Bvo. , 
y.  6d. 

Ball  (John). 
The   Alpine  Guide.      Reconstructed 
and   Revised  on   behalf  of  the  Alpine 
Club,  by  W.  A.  B.  Coolidge. 
Vol.   I.    The  Western  Alps  ;    The 
Alpine  Region,  South  of  the  Rhone 
Valley,  from  the  Col  de  Tenda  to  the 
Simplon    Pass.     With    9   New    and 
Revised  Maps.    Crown  8vo, ,  i2j.  net. 
Hints  and  Notes,  Practical  and 
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the  Alps  :  being  a  Revision  of  the 
General  Introduction  to  the  'Alpine 
Guide'.     Crown  Bvo.,  35.  net. 

Bent.— The  Ruined  Cities  of  Mash- 
on  aland  :  being  a  Record  of  Excava- 
tion and  Exploration  in  1891.  By  J- 
Theodore  Bent.  With  117  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo. ,  3J.  6d. 

Bicknell.— Travel  and  Adventure 
IN  Northern  Queensland.  By 
Arthur  C.  Bicknell.  With  24  Plates 
and  22  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Bvo., 
15J. 

Brassey.— Voyages  and  Travels  of 
Lord  Brassey,  K.C.B.,  D.C.L.,  1862- 
1894.  Arranged  and  Edited  by  Captain 
S.  Eardley-Wilmot.  2  vols.  Cr. 
8vo.,  iw. 


A  Voyage  in  the  '  Sunbeam  ' ;  Our 

Home  on  the  Ocean  for  Eleven 

Months. 

Cabinet  Edition.    With  Map  and  66 
Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo.,  js.  6d. 

'Silver  Library'  Edition.     With  66 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  y.  6d. 

Popular  Edition.    With  60  Illustra- 
tions.    4to.,  6d.  sewed,  is.  cloth. 

School  Edition.    With  37  Illustrations. 
Fcp.,  2J.cloth,  or  3J. white  parchment. 
Sunshine  and  Storm  in  the  East. 

Cabinet  Edition.     With  2  Maps  and 
114  Illustrations.   Crown  Bvo.,  7J'.6(f. 

Popular  Edition.     With  103  Illustra- 
tions.    4to.,  6d.  sewed,  is.  cloth. 
In  the  Trades,  the  Tropics,  and 

THE  '  Roaring  Forties  '. 

Cabinet  Edition.     With  Map  and  220 
Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo.,  js.  6d. 

Browning.— A  Girl's  Wanderings 
in  Hungary.  By  H,  Ellen  Brovv^n- 
ING.  With  Map  and  20  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo. ,  3.?.  6d. 

Churchill.  —  The  Story  of  the 
Malakand  Field  Force,  1897.  By 
Winston  Spencer  Churchill.  With 
6  Maps  and  Plans.     Cr.  Bvo. ,  3^.  6d. 

Froude  (James  A.). 

Oceana  :  or  England  and  her  Colonies. 
With  9  Illustrations.  Crown  Bvo., 
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8  LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Travel  and  Adventure,  the  Colonies,  &c. — continued, 

Howitt.— Visits  to  Remarkable 
Places,  Old  Halls.  Battle-Fields, 
Scenes,  illustrative  of  Striking  Passages 
in  English  History  and  Poetry.  By 
William  Howitt.  With  80  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  Bvo.,  3^.  dd. 


Knight  (E.  F.). 

The  Cruise  of  the  '  Alerte  ' :  the 
Narrative  of  a  Search  for  Treasure  on 
the  Desert  Island  of  Trinidad.  With 
2  Maps  and  23  Illustrations.  Crovv^n 
Bvo.,  3J.  6d. 

Where  Three  Empires  Meet:  a  Nar- 
rative of  Recent  Travel  in  Kashmir, 
Western  Tibet,  Baltistan,  Ladak, 
Gilgit,  and  the  adjoining  Countries. 
With  a  Map  and  54  Illustrations. 
Cr.  Bvo.,  3J.  dd. 

The  'Falcon'  on  the  Baltic:  a 
Voyage  from  London  to  Copenhagen 
in  a  Three-Tonner.  With  10  Full- 
page  Illustrations.     Cr.  Bvo.,  3^.  dd. 

Lees.  —  Peaks  and  Pines  :  another 
Norway  Book.  ByJ.  A.  Lees.  With  63 
Illustrations  and  Photographs  Cr,  Bvo. , 

Lees  and  Clutterbuck.— B.  C.  1B87 : 
A  Ramble  in  British  Columbia.  By 
J.  A.  Lees  and  W.  J.  Clutterbuck. 
With  Map  and  75  Illustrations.  Cr.  Bvo. , 
3^.  dd. 

Macdonald.  —  The  Gold  Coast  : 
Past  and.  Present.  By  George 
Macdonald.  With  32  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo. ,  75.  dd. 


Nansen.  — The  First  Crossing  of 
Greenland.  By  Fridtjof  Nansen. 
With  143  Illustrations  and  a  Map.  Cr. 
Bvo.,  3^.  6d. 

Phillips.  —  South  African  Recol- 
lections. By  Florence  Phillips 
(Mrs.  Lionel  Phillips).  With  37  Il- 
lustrations.    Bvo.,  7J.  6d. 

Smith. — Climbing  in  the  British 
Isles.     By  W.  P.  Haskett  Smith. 
With  Illustrations  by  Ellis  Carr,  and 
Numerous  Plans. 
Parti.  England.     i6mo.,  3^.  td. 
Part  II.    Wales    and     Ireland. 
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Stephen.  —  The     Playground     of 
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Stephen.  With  4  Illustrations.  Crown 
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THREE  IN   NORWAY.      By  Two  ot 
Them.     With  a  Map  and  59  Illustra- 
tions.    Cr.  Bvo. ,  2J.  boards,  2J.  6d.  cloth. 

Tyndall  (John). 
The  Glaciers  of  the  Alps  :  being  a 
Narrative  of  Excursions  and  Ascents. 
An  Account  of  the  Origin  and  Pheno- 
mena of  Glaciers,  and  an  Exposition 
of  the  Physical  Principles  to  which 
they  are  related.     With  61  Illustra- 
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Hours  of  Exercise  in  the  Alps. 
With  7  Illustrations.    Cr.  Bvo.,  6s.  6d. 
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Vivian.— Servia  :     the    Poor    Man's 
Paradise.    By  Herbert  Vivian,  M.  A. , 
Officer  of  the  Royal  Order  of  Takovo. 
With  Map  and  Portrait  of  King  Alex- 
ander.    8vo. ,  15J. 


Sport  and  Pastime. 
THE   BADMINTON   LIBRARY. 

Edited   by   HIS   GRACE   THE   DUKE   OF    BEAUFORT.    K.G.,  and 

A.  E.  T.  WATSON. 
Complete  in  28  Volumes.     Crown  Bvo. ,  Price  105.  6d.  each  Volume,  Cloth. 
The  Volumes  are  also  issued  half-bound  in  Leather,  with  gilt  top.     The  price  can 
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ARCHERY.  By  C.  J.  Longman  and 
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tions by  Miss  Legh,  Viscount  Dillon, 
&c.  With  2  Maps,  23  Plates,  and  172 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown  Bvo. , 
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ATHLETICS.  By  Montague  Shear- 
man. With  Chapters  on  Athletics  at 
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letic Sports  in  America  by  C.  H.  Sher- 
rill  ;  a  Contribution  on  Paper-chasing 
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Crown  Bvo. ,  \os.  6d. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORICS.      Q 


Sport  and  ^d^^iixxit— continued. 
THE  BADMINTON  lA^l^JkRY— continued. 


BIG   GAME  SHOOTING.      By  Clive 
Phillipps-Wolley. 
Vol.  I.     Africa  and  America.    With 
Contributions    by    Sir  Samuel  W, 
Baker,    W.    C.    Oswell,    F.    C. 
Selous,  &c.       With  20   Plates  and 
57  Illustrations  in  the  Text.     Crown 
8vo. ,  loj.  6d. 
Vol.   II.     Europe,  Asia,   and   the 
Arctic  Regions.  With  Contributions 
by  Lieut.-Colonel  R.  Heber  Percy, 
Major  Algernon  C.  Heber  Percy, 
&c.      With  17  Plates  and  56  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.      Crown  8vo., 
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BILLIARDS.   By  Major  W.  Broadfoot, 
R.E.       With   Contributions  by  A.   H. 
Boyd,    Sydenham     Dixon,    W.    J. 
Ford,  &c.      With  11  Plates,  19  Illus- 
trations  in   the    Text,    and    numerous 
Diagrams.     Crown  8vo. ,  loj.  6d. 
COURSING    AND    FALCONRY.      By 
Harding  Cox,   Charles  Richard- 
son, and  the  Hon.  Gerald  Lascelles. 
With  20  Plates  and  55  Illustrations  in 
the  Text.      Crown  Bvo. ,  10s.  6d. 
CRICKET.     By  A.  G.  Steel,  and  the 
Hon.  R.  H.  Lyttelton.     With  Con- 
tributions by  Andrew  Lang,  W.  G. 
Grace,  F.  Gale,  &c.     With  13  Plates 
and  52  Illustrations  in  the  Text.   Crown 
Bvo.,  lOJ.  6d. 
CYCLING.       By  the  Earl  of  Albe- 
marle, and  G.  Lacy  Hillier.     With 
19  Plates  and  44   Illustrations   in  the 
Text.     Crown  Bvo.,  loj.  6d. 
DANCING.      By  Mrs.    Lilly    Grove, 
F.R.G.S.     With  Contributions  by  Miss 
MiDDLETON,  The  Hon.    Mrs.    Army- 
tage,   &c.      With  Musical  Examples, 
and  38  Full-page  Plates  and  93  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.     Cr.  Bvo.,  los.  6d. 
DRIVING.      By  His  Grace  the  Duke  of 
Beaufort,  K.G.     With  Contributions 
by  A.  E.  T.  Watson,  the  Earl  of 
Onslow,  &c.     With  12  Plates  and  54 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.     Crown  8vo. , 
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FENCING,  BOXING,  AND  WREST- 
LING.    By  Walter  H.    Pollock, 
F.   C.    Grove,    C.    Prevost,    E.    B. 
Mitchell,  and  Walter  Armstrong. 
With  18  Plates  and  24  Illustrations  in 
the  Text.     Crown  Bvo. ,  ioj.  6d. 


FISHING.    By  H.  Cholmondeley-Pen- 

NELL. 

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Contributions  by  H.  R.  Francis, 
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FOOTBALL.  By  Montague  Shear- 
man, W.  J.  Oakley,  G.  O.  Smith, 
Frank  Mitchell,  &c.  With  19  Plates 
and  35  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Cr. 
Bvo.,  xos.  6d. 

GOLF.  By  Horace  G.  Hutchinson. 
With  Contributions  by  the  Rt.  Hon.  A. 
J.  Balfour,  M.P.,  Sir  Walter 
Simpson,  Bart.,  Andrew  Lang,  &c. 
With  32  Plates  and  57  Illustrations  in 
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HUNTING.  By  His  Grace  the  Duke  op 
Beaufort  K.G.,  and  Mowbray 
Morris.  With  Contributions  by  the 
Earl  of  Suffolk  and  Berkshire, 
Rev.  E.  W.  L.  Davies,  G.  H.  Long- 
man, &c.  With  5  Plates  and  54  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.  Crown  Bvo., 
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MOUNTAINEERING.  By  C.  T.  Dent. 
With  Contributions  by  Sir  W.  M.  Con- 
way, D.  W.  Freshfield,  C.  E.  Ma- 
thews, &c.  With  13  Plates  and  95 
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POETRY  OF  SPORT  (THE).— Selected 
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Classical  Allusions  to  Sport  by  Andrew 
Lang,  and  a  Special  Preface  to  the 
Badminton  Library  by  A.  E.  T,  Wat- 
SON.  With  32  Plates  and  74  Illustra- 
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RACING  AND  STEEPLE-CHASING. 
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shire, W.  G.  Craven,  the  Hon.  F. 
Lawley,  Arthur  Coventry,  and 
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10   LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS, 


Sport  and  Pastime — continued. 
THE  BADMINTON  LIBRARY— continued. 

RIDING  AND  POLO.  By  Captain 
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T.  F.  Dale,  the  Duke  of  Beaufort, 
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ROWING.  By  R.  P.  P.  RowE  and  C. 
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ing by  C.  P.  Serocold,  and  F.  C. 
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Blanc  Smith  ;  and  on  PUNTING  by 
P.  W.  Squire.  With  75  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.,  10s.  6d. 

SEA  FISHING.  By  John  Bickerdyke, 
Sir  H.  W.  Gore-Booth,  Alfred  C. 
Harmsworth,  and  W.  Senior.  With 
22  Full-page  Plates  and  175  Illustra- 
tions in  the  Text.     Crown  Svo. ,  ioj,  6d, 

SHOOTING. 
Vol.  I.  Field  and  Covert.  By  Lord 
Walsingham  andSir Ralph  Pa yne- 
Gallwey.  Bart.  With  Contribu- 
tions by  the  Hon.  Gerald  Las- 
celles  and  A.  J.  Stuart- Wortley. 
With  II  Plates  and  94  Illustrations 
in  the  Text.     Crown  Svo. ,  10s.  6d. 

Vol.  II.  Moor  and  Marsh.  By  Lord 
Walsingham  and  Sir  Ralph  Payne- 
Gallwey,  Bart.  With  Contributions 
by  Lord  Lovat  and  Lord  Charles 
Lennox  Kerr.  With  8  Plates  and 
57  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown 
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SKATING,  CURLING,  TOBOGGAN- 
ING.     By  J.  M.  Heathcote,  C.  G. 
Tebbutt,    T.    Maxwell    Witham, 
Rev.    John    Kerr,  Ormond   Hake, 
Henry  A.  Buck,  &c.     With  12  Plates 
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t8     LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORI^S. 


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Rankin.  —  Wagner's     Nibelungen 
Ring.      Done  into   English  Verse  by 
Reginald  Rankin,  B.A.,  of  the  Inner 
Temple,    Barrister-at-Law.        Vol.     I. 
Rhinegold  and  Valkyrie. 
Riley  (James  Whitcomb). 
Old     Fashioned     Roses  :      Poems. 

T2mo.,  55. 
RubaiyXt  of  Doc  Sifers.     With  43 

Illustrations     by     C.    M.     Relyea. 

Crown  8vo. 
The  Golden  Year.     From  the  Verse 

and    Prose    of    James    Whitcomb 

Riley.      Compiled    by    Clara    E. 

Laughlin.    Fcp.  8vo.,  y. 


-A  Selection  from  the 
George  John  Romanes, 
M.A.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.  With  an  Intro- 
duction by  T.  Herbert  Warren, 
President  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford, 
Crown  8vo.,  45.  6d. 

Russell.— Sonnets  on  the  Sonnet: 
an  Anthology.  Compiled  by  the  Rev. 
Matthew  Russell,  S.J.  Crown  8vo., 
3J  6d. 

Samuels.  —  Shadows,  and  other 
Poems.  By  E.  Samuels.  With  7 
Illustrations  by  W.  Fitzgerald,  M.A. 
Crown  Svo. ,  y.  6d. 

Shakespeare.— Bowdler's     Family 

Shakespeare.      With    36  Woodcuts. 

I  vol.     8vo.,  i^r.     Or  in  6  vols.     Fcp. 

8vo,,  2 1  J. 

Shakespeare's  Sonnets.  Recon- 
sidered, and  in  part  Rearranged,  with 
Introductory  Chapters  and  a  Re- 
print of  the  Original  1609  Edition. 
By  Samuel  Butler,  Author  of 
'  Erewbon,'  etc. 

The  Shakespeare  Birthday  Book. 
By  Mary  F.  Dunbar.  32mo.,  u.  6d. 

Wordsworth.  —  Selected  Poems. 
By  Andrew  Lang.  With  Photo- 
gravure Frontispiece  of  Rydal  Mount. 
With  16  Illustrations  and  numerous 
Initial  Letters.  By  Alfred  Parsons, 
A.R.A.     Crown  8vo.,  gilt  edges,  y.  6d. 

Wordsworth  and  Coleridge.— A 
Description  of  the  Wordsworth 
AND  Coleridge  Manuscripts  in  the 
Possession  of  Mr.  T.  Norton  Long- 
man. Edited,  with  Notes,  by  W.  Hale 
White.  With  3  Facsimile  Reproduc- 
tions.    4to.,  loj.  6d. 


Fiction,  Humour,  &c. 


Anstey.— Voces  Populi.  Reprinted 
from  '  Punch '.  By  F.  Anstey,  Author 
of  'Vice  Versa '.  First  Series.  With 
20  Illustrations  by  J.  Bernard  Part- 
ridge. Crown  8vo.,  3.?.  6d. 
Beaconsfield  (The  Earl  of). 

Novels  and  Tales.     Complete  in  11 
vols.     Crown  8vo.,  \s.  6d.  each, 
Sybil. 

Henrietta  Temple 
]  Venetia. 
!  Coningsby. 

Lothair. 
I  Endymion, 


Vivian  Grey. 
TheYoungDuke,  &c. 
Alroy,  Ixion,  &c. 
Contarini    Fleming, 

&c. 
Tancred. 


Birt.— Castle  Czvargas  :  a  Romance. 
Being  a  Plain  Story  of  the  Romantic 
Adventures  of  Two  Brothers,  Told  by 
the  Younger  of  Them.  Edited  by 
Archibald  Birt.     Crown  Svo. ,  6s. 

'  Chola.'—  A  New  Divinity,  and 
other  Stories  of  Hindu  Life.  By 
'  Chola  '.     Crown  Svo. ,  2s.  6d. 

Diderot.  —  Rameau's  Nephew  :  a 
Translation  from  Diderot's  Autographic 
Text.  By  Sylvia  Margaret  Hill. 
Crown  Svo. ,  y.  6d. 

Dougall.  — Beggars  All.  By  L. 
Dougall.     Crown  Svo.,  -^s.  6d. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.     21 


Fiction,  Humour,  &c. — continued. 


Doyle  (A.  Conan). 

MiCAH  Clarke:  a  Tale  of  Monmouth's 
Rebellion.  With  10  Illustrations. 
Cr.  8vo.,  3J.  td. 

The  Captain  of  the  Polestar,  and 
other  Tales.     Cr.  8vo. ,  3J-.  6d. 

The  Refugees  :  a  Tale  of  the  Hugue- 
nots. With  25  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo.,  3J.  bd. 

The  Stark-Munro  Letters.  Cr. 
8vo.,  3J.  ^d. 

JS'arrar  (F.  W. ,  Dean  of  Canterbury). 
Darkness  and  Dawn  :  or,  Scenes  in 
the  Days  of  Nero.    An  Historic  Tale. 
Cr.  8vo.,  ^s.  td. 

Gathering  Clouds  :  a  Tale  of  the 
Days  of  St.  Chrysostom.  Crown 
8vo.,  yj.  dd. 

Fowler  (Edith  H.). 

The  Young  Pretenders.  A  Story  of 
Child  Life.  With  12  Illustrations  by 
Sir  Philip  Burne-Jones,  Bart.  Cr. 
8vo.,  6j. 

The  Professor's  Children.  With 
24  Illustrations  by  Ethel  Kate 
Burgess.     Crown  8vo. ,  6j. 

Francis.— Yeoman  Fleetwood.  By 
M.  E.  Francis,  Author  of  '  In  a  North- 
country  Village,'  etc.     Cr.  8vo.,  ts. 

Froude.— The  Two  Chiefs  of  Dun- 
boy  :  an  Irish  Romance  of  the  Last 
Century.  By  James  A.  Froude.  Cr. 
8vo.,  3J.  td. 

Gurdon.— Memories  and  Fancies  : 
Suffolk  Tales  and  other  Stories  ;  Fairy 
Legends  ;  Poems  ;  Miscellaneous  Arti- 
cles. By  the  late  Lady  Camilla 
Gurdon,  Author  of  'Suffolk  Folk- 
Lore '.     Crown  8vo. ,  5^. 

Haggard  (H.  Rider). 
Swallow  :  a  Tale  of  the  Great  Trek. 

With  8  Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  ts. 
Dr.  Therne.     Crown  8vo.,  3^.  td. 
Heart  of  the   World.      With  15 

Illustrations.    Crown  8vo.,  35.  td. 
Joan  Haste.     With  20  Illustrations. 

Cr.  8vo.,  3J.  td. 


With 
3J.  td. 
Cr.  8vo, 


24 


Haggard  (H.  ^ivi^s.^)— continued. 

The  People  of  the  Mist.  With  16 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  3J.  td. 

Montezuma's  Daughter. 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo., 

She.     With  32  Illustrations. 
-y.  td. 

Allan  Quatermain.  With  31  Illus- 
trations.    Crown  8vo.,  y.  td. 

Maiwa's  Revenge.  Crown  8vo. ,  xs.  td. 

Colonel  Quaritch,  V.C.  With 
Frontispiece  aud  Vignette.  Cr.  8vo. , 
3J.  td. 

Cleopatra.  With  29  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.,  3J.  td. 

Beatrice.  With  Frontispiece  and 
Vignette.     Crown  8vo. ,  3J.  td. 

Eric  Brighteyes.  With  51  Illustra- 
tions.    Cr.  8vo.,  3J.  td. 

Nada  the  Lily.  With  23  Illustra- 
tions.   Cr.  8vo.,  3J.  td. 

Allan's  Wife.  With  34  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo. ,  3J.  td. 

The  Witch's  Head.  With  16  Illus- 
trations.    Crown  8vo.,  3^'.  td. 

Mr.  Meeson's  Will.  With  16  Illus- 
trations.    Crown  8vo.,  3^.  td. 

Dawn.  With  16  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo.   3J.  td. 


Haggard  and  Lang.— The  World's 
Desire.  By  H.  Rider  Haggard  and 
Andrew  Lang.  With  27  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo. ,  35.  td. 


Harte. —  In  the  Carquinez  Woods. 
By  Bret  Harte.     Cr.  8vo.,  3^.  td. 

Hope.— The  Heart  of  Princess 
Osra.  By  Anthony  Hope.  With  9 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  ts. 


Jerome. — Sketches  in  Lavender  : 
Blue  and  Green.  By  Jerome  K. 
Jerome.     Crown  8vo.,  35.  td. 

Joyce.  —  Old  Celtic  RoMA^rcEs. 
Twelve  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the 
Ancient  Irish  Romantic  Tales.  Trans- 
lated from  the  Gaelic.  By  P.  W.  Joyce, 
LL.  D.     Crown  8vo. ,  y.  td. 


22    LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Fiction,  Humour,  &c. — continued. 

Morris  (William) 
The    Roots 


Lang. — A  Monk  of  Fife  :  a  Story  of 
the  Days  of  Joan  of  Arc.  By  Andrew 
Lang.  With  13  Illustrations  by  Selwyn 
Image.    Crown  8vo,,  y.  6d. 

Levett- Yeats  (S.). 
The  Chevalier  d'Auriac.      Crown 

8vo.,  35.  6d. 
A   Galahad   of  the    Creeks,  and 

other  Stories.     Crown  8vo. ,  6s. 
The   Heart  of  Denise,  and  other 

Tales.     Crown  Bvo.,  6s. 

Lyall  (Edna). 

The  Autobiography  of  a  Slander. 
Fcp.  Bvo.,  IS.  sewed. 

Presentation  Edition.  With  20  Illus- 
trations by  Lancelot  Speed.  Cr. 
8vo. ,  2J.  6cl.  net. 

The  Autobiography  of  a  Truth. 
Fcp.  8vo.,  15.  sewed  ;  is.  6d.  cloth. 

Doreen.  The  Story  of  a  Singer.  Cr. 
8vo. ,  6s. 

Wayfaring  Men.    Crown  Bvo. ,  6s. 

Hope  the  Hermit  :  a  Romance  of 
Borrowdale.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

Max  Miiller.  —  Deutsche  Liebe 
(German  Love)  :  Fragments  from  the 
Papers  of  an  Alien.  Collected  by  F. 
Max  Muller,  Translated  from  the 
German  by  G.  A.  M.    Crown  Bvo,,  55. 

Melville  (G.  J.  Whyte). 


The  Gladiators. 
The  Interpreter. 
Good  for  Nothing. 
The  Queen's  Maries. 


Holmby  House. 
Kate  Coventry. 
Digby  Grand. 
Genei"al  Bounce. 


Cr.  Bvo.,  xs.  6d.  each. 

Merriman. — Flotsam  :  a  Story  of  the 
Indian  Mutiny.  By  Henry  Seton  Mer- 
riman.    Crown  Bvo.,  35.  6d. 

Morris  (William). 
The  Sundering  Flood.     Crown  Bvo., 

'js.  6d. 
The  Water  of  the  Wondrous  Isles. 

Crown  Bvo.,  75.  6d. 
The  Well  at  the  World's  End.    2 

vols. ,  Bvo. ,  iZs. 
The  Story  of  the  Glittering  Plain, 

which  has  been  also  called  The  Land 

of  the  Living  Men,  or  The  Acre  of 

the  Undying.     Square  post  Bvo.,  55. 

net. 


continued, 
of  the  Mountains, 
wherein  is  told  somewhat  of  the  Lives 
of  the  Men  of  Burgdale,  their  Friends, 
their  Neighbours,  their  Foemen,  and 
their  Fellows-in-Arms.  Written  in 
Prose  and  Verse.  Square  crown 
Bvo.,  %s. 

A  Tale  of  the  House  of  the  Wolf- 
ings,  and  all  the  Kindreds  of  the 
Mark.  Written  in  Prose  and  Verse. 
Square  crown  Bvo. ,  6s. 

A  DreXm  of  John  Ball,  and  a 
King's  Lesson.     i2mo. ,  u.  6d. 

News  from  Nowhere  ;  or,  An  Epoch 
of  Rest.  Being  some  Chapters  from 
an  Utopian  Romance.  Post  Bvo.,  xs. 
6d. 

*»*  For  Mr.  William  Morris's  Poetical 
Works,  see  p.  19. 

ITewman  (Cardinal). 

Loss  and  Gain  :  The  Story  of  a  Con- 
vert. Crown  Bvo.  Cabinet  Edition, 
65. ;  Popular  Edition,  35.  6d. 

Callista  :  A  Tale  of  the  Third  Cen- 
tury. Crown  Bvo.  Cabinet  Edition, 
6s.  ;  Popular  Edition,  •^^j.  6d. 

Phillipps-WoUey.— Snap  :  a  Legend 
of  the  Lone  Mountain.  By  C.  Phil- 
lipps-Wolley.  With  13  Illustrations. 
Crown  Bvo.,  35.  6d. 

Raymond  (Walter). 
Two  Men  o'  Mendip.     Cr.  Bvo.,  6s. 
No  Soul  Above  Money.    Cr.  Bvo.,  65. 

Reader.— Priestess  and  Queen  :  a 
Tale  of  the  White  Race  of  Mexico ; 
being  the  Adventures  of  Ignigene  and 
her  Twenty-six  Fair  Maidens.  By 
Emily  E.  Reader.  Illustrated  by 
Emily  K.  Reader.    Crown  Bvo.,  6s. 

Sewell  (Elizabeth  M.). 
A  Glimpse  of  the  World.    Amy  Herbert, 
Laneton  Parsonage.  Cleve  Hall. 

Margaret  Percival.  Gertrude. 

Katharine  Ashton.  Home  Life. 

The  Earl's  Daughter.         After  Life. 
The  Experience  of  Life.     Ursula.    Ivors. 
Cr.  Bvo.,  xs.  6d.  each,  cloth  plain.    25.  6d. 
each,  cloth  extra,  gilt  edges. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS.    23 


Fiction,  Humour,  &c. — continued. 


Somerville  and  Ross.— Some  Ex- 
periences OF  AN  Irish  R.M.  By 
E.  CE,  Somerville  and  Martin  Ross. 
With  31  Illustrations  by  E.  CE.  Somer- 
ville,    Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

Stebbing.— Probable  Tales.    Edited 
by  William  Stebbing      Crown  8vo. 
45.  6d. 

Stevenson  (Robert  Louis). 
The  Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll 

and   Mr.    Hyde.      Fcp.    8vo.,    u. 

sewed,  u.  6d.  cloth. 
The  Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll 

and  Mr.  Hyde;    with  Other  Fables. 

Crown  8vo. ,  3J.  td. 
More  New  Arabian  Nights— The 

Dynamiter.      By    Robert   Louis 

Stevenson    and    Fanny   Van   de 

Grift    Stevenson.      Crown   8vo., 

35.  ed. 
The  Wrong  Box.     By  Robert  Louis 

Stevenson  and  Lloyd  Osbourne. 

Crown  8vo. ,  3^.  6d. 

Suttner.  — Lay  Down  Your  Arms 
(£>/<?  Waffen  Nieder) :  The  Autobio- 
graphy of  Martha  Tilling.  By  Bertha 
von  Suttner.  Translated  by  T. 
Holmes.     Crown  8vo.,  is.  6d. 

Taylor.  —  Early  Italian  Love- 
Stories.  Taken  from  the  Originals  by 
Una  Taylor.  With  13  Illustrations  by 
Henry  J.  Ford.    Crown  4to.,  15J.  net. 

Trollope  (Anthony). 
The  Warden.    Cr.  8yo.,  is.  6d. 
Barchester  Towers.  Cr.  8vo. ,  is.  6d. 

Walford  (L.  B.). 
The  Intruders.    Crown  8vo,,  6s. 
Leddy  Marget.     Crown  8vo.,  2s.  6d. 
IVA  Kildare:  a  Matrimonial  Problem. 

Crown  8vo. ,  6s. 
Mr.  Smith  :  a  Part  of  his  Life.    Crown 

8vo.,  2J.  6d. 
The  Baby's  Grandmother.     Crown 

8vo.,  IS.  6d. 
Cousins.     Crown  8vo. ,  2j.  6d. 
Troublesome    Daughters.     Crown 

8vo.,  2j.  6d. 


7.S.  6d. 
Crown 


2S.  6d. 
Crown 


Walford  (L.  B.).— continued. 
Pauline.     Crown  8vo.,  -zs.  6d. 
Dick  Netherby.     Crown  8vo 
The  History  of  a  Week. 

8vo. ,  2J.  6d. 
A  Stiff-necked  Generation.  Crown 

8vo.  2J.  6d. 
Nan,  and  other  Stories.   Cr.  8vo.,  -zs.  6d. 
The  Mischief  of  Monica.    Crown 

8vo. ,  2J.  6d. 
The  One  Good  Guest.  Cr.  8vo. 
'  Ploughed,'  and  other  Stories. 

8vo.,  2.S.  6d. 
The  Matchmaker.    Cr,  8vo.,  2J.  6d. 

Ward.— One  Poor  Scruple.  By  Mrs. 
Wilfrid  Ward.    Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

Watson.— Racing  and  'Chasing  :  a 
Volume  of  Sporting  Stories.  By 
Alfred  E.  T.  Watson,  Editor  of 
the  '  Badminton  Magazine '.  With  16 
Plates  and  36  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo.,  ^s.  6d. 

Weyman  (Stanley). 
The   House   of  the   Wolf.     With 

Frontispiece  and  Vignette.     Cr.  8vo., 

35.  6d. 
A   Gentleman    of    France.     With 

Frontispiece  and  Vignette.     Cr.  8vo., 

6s. 
The  Red  Cockade.  With  Frontispiece 

and  Vignette.     Cr.  8vo. ,  6s. 
Shrewsbury.   With  24  Illustrations  by 

Claude  Shepperson.    Cr.  8vo.,  6s. 

Whishaw  (Fred.). 
ABoyar  of  the  Terrible:  a  Romance 
of  the  Court  of  Ivan  the  Cruel,  First 
Tzar  of  Russia.  With  12  Illustrations 
by  H.  G.  Massey,  A.R.E.  Cr.8vo., 
6s. 

A  Tsar's  Gratitude  :    a    Story   of 
Modern  Russia.     Cr.  8vo.,  6s. 

Woods.— Weeping  Ferry,  and  other 
Stories.  By  Margaret  L.  Woods, 
Author  of  '  A  Village  Tragedy '.  Crown 
8vo.,  6s. 


Popular  Science  (Natural  History,  &c.). 

Beddard.  —  The     Structure     and    Butler.— Our    Household    Insects. 


Classification  of  Birds.  By  Frank 
E.  Beddard,  M.A.,  F.R.S.,  Prosector 
and  Vice-Secretary  of  the  Zoological 
Society  of  London.  With  252  Illustra- 
tions.    8vo.,  21J.  net. 


An  Account  of  the  Insect- Pests  found 
in  DweUing-Houses.  By  Edward 
A.  Butler,  B.A.,  B.Sc.  (Lond.). 
With  113  Illustrations.  Crown  8vo., 
3^.  6d. 


24    LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Popular  Science  (Natural  History,  &c.). 

Furneaux  (W.).  I  Proctor  (Richard  A.). 


The  Outdoor  World  ;  or,  The  Young 
Collector's  Handbook.  With  i8 
Plates  {i6  of  which  are  coloured) 
and  549  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo. ,  7s.  6d. 

Butterflies  and  Moths  (British). 
With  12  coloured  Plates  and  241 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo., 
js.  6d. 

Life  in  Ponds  and  Streams.     With 
8  coloured  Plates   and  331   Illustra- 
tions in  the  Text.     Cr.  8vo. ,  js.  6d. 
Hartwig  (Dr.  George). 

The  Sea  and  its  Living  Wonders. 
With  12  Plates  and  303  Woodcuts. 
8vo.,  7s.  net. 

The  Tropical  World.  With  8  Plates 
and  172  Woodcuts.     8vo.,  js.  net. 

The  Polar  World.  With  3  Maps,  8 
Plates  and  85  Woodcuts.    8vo. ,  73.  net. 

The  Subterranean  World.  With 
3  Maps  and  80  Woodcuts.   8vo.,7J.  net. 

The  Aerial  World.  With  Map,  8 
Plates  and  60  Woodcuts.   8vo. ,  7s.  net. 

Heroes  of  the  Polar  World.  With 
ig  Illustrations.    Crown  8vo.,  2s. 

Wonders  of  the  Tropical  Forests. 
With  40  Illustrations.   Crown  8vo. ,  2s. 

Workers  under  the  Ground.  With 

29  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  zs. 
Marvels  over  our  Heads.    With  29 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo. ,  zs. 
.Sea  Monsters  and  Sea  Birds.  With 

75  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo. ,  2s.  6d. 
Denizens  of  the  Deep.      With  117 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  2^.  613'. 
Volcanoes  and  Earthquakes.  With 

30  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  2s.  6d. 
Wild   Animals    of    the    Tropics. 

With  66  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo. , 

y.  6d. 

Helniliolt25.— Popular  Lectures  on 

Scientific  Subjects.     By  Hermann 

von  Helmholtz.    With  68  Woodcuts. 

2  vols.     Crown  8vo. ,  3J.  6d.  each. 

Hudson  (W.  H.). 

British  Birds.  With  a  Chapter  on 
Structure  and  Classification  by  Frank 
E.  Beddard,  F.R.S.  With  16  Plates 
(8  of  which  are  Coloiued),  and  over 
100  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown 
Svo. ,  7s.  6d. 

Birds  in  London.  With  17  Plates 
and  15  Illustrations  in  the  Text,  by 
Bryan  Hook,  A.  D.  McCormick, 
and  from  Photographs  from  Nature, 
by  R.  B,  Lodge.    8vo.,  12s. 


Light  Science  for  Leisure  Hours. 
Familiar  Essays  on  Scientific  Subjects. 
3  vols.  Crown  8vo. ,  5^.  each.  Vol.  I., 
Cheap  edition,  Crown  8vo.,  y.  6d. 

Rough  Ways  made  Smooth.  Fami- 
liar Essays  on  Scientific  Subjects. 
Crown  8vo.,  y.  6d. 

Pleasant  Ways  in  Science. 
Crown  8vo. ,  35.  6d. 

Nature  Studies.  By  R.  A.  Proctor, 
Grant  Allen,  A.  Wilson,  T.  Fos- 
ter and  E.  Clodd.     Cr.  8vo. ,  3^.  6d. 

Leisure  Readings.  By  R.  A.  Proc- 
tor, E.  Clodd,  A.  Wilson,  T. 
Foster,  and  A.  C.  Ran  yard.  Cr. 
8vo.,  35.  6d. 

*^*   For  Mr,  Proctor's  other  books  see 
p.    28,    and  Messrs.   Lofigmans  6»    Co.'s 
Catalogue  of  Scientific  Works. 
Stanley.— A  Familiar    History    of 

Birds.     By  E.    Stanley,    D.D.,   for- 
merly Bishop  of  Norwich.      With  160 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  y.  6d. 
Wood  (Rev.  J.  G.). 

Homes  without  Hands  :  a  Descrip- 
tion of  the  Habitation  of  Animals, 
classed  according  to  the  Principle  of 
Construction.  With  140  Illustrations. 
8vo. ,  7s.  net. 

Insects  at  Home  .  a  Popular  Account 
of  British  Insects,  their  Structure, 
Habits  and  Transformations.  With 
700  Illustrations.     8vo.,  7s.  net. 

Out  of  Doors;  a  Selection  of  Origi- 
nal Articles "  on  Practical  Natural 
History.  With  11  Illustrations.  Cr. 
Svo. ,  y.  6d. 

Strange  Dwellings  :  a  Description 
of  the  Habitations  of  Animals, 
abridged  from  '  Homes  without 
Hands '.  With  60  Illustrations.  Cr. 
8vo. ,  3^.  6d. 

Petland  Revisited.  With  33  Illus- 
trations.    Cr.  8vo.,  3^.   6d, 

Bird  Life  of  the  Bible.  With  32 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo. ,  35.  6d. 

Wonderful  Nests.  With  30  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  Svo. ,  35.  6d, 

Homes  under  the  Ground.     With 

28  Illustrations.      Crown  Svo. ,  3^.  6d. 
Wild  Animals  of  the  Bible.     With 

29  Illustrations.      Crown  Svo. ,  3^.  6d. 
Domestic  Animals  of  the   Bible. 

With  23  Illustrations.    Cr.  Svo. ,  35.  6d. 
The    Branch    Builders.      With  28 

Illustrations.     Crown  Svo. ,  2j.  6d, 
Social  Habitations  and  Parasitic 

Nests.    With  18  lUus.     Cr.  8vo.,  2s. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS,    25 


Works  of  Reference. 


G"wilt.— An  Encyclopedia  of  Archi- 
tecture. B)'  Joseph  Gwilt,  F.S.A. 
Illustrated  with  more  than  iioo  Engrav- 
ings on  Wood.  Revised  (1888),  with 
Alterations  and  Considerable  Addi- 
tions by  Wyatt  Pap  worth.  Bvo., 
£2  12S.  6d, 

Maunder  (Samuel). 

BiOGRAi  HiCAL  TREASURY.  With  Sup- 
plement brought  down  to  1889.  By 
Rev.  James  Wood.     Fcp.  8vo. ,  6s. 

Treasury  of  Geography,  Physical, 
Historical,  Descriptive,  and  Political. 
With  7  Maps  and  16  Plates.  Fcp. 
Bvo.,  6s. 

The  Treasury  of  Bible  Know- 
ledge. By  the  Rev.  J.  Ayre,  M.A. 
With  5  Maps,  15  Plates,  and  300 
Woodcuts.     Fcp.  8vo.,  6s. 

Treasury  of  Knowledge  and 
Library  of  Reference.  Fcp.  Bvo., 
6s. 

Historical  Treasury  :  Fcp.  Bvo.,  6s. 


Maunder  {^divciuel)— continued. 

Scientific  and  Literary  Treasury. 

Fcp.  Bvo.,  6s. 
The  Treasury  of  Botany.     Edited 
by    J.    Lindley,    F.R.S.,    and    T. 
Moore,   F.L.S.     With  274  Wood- 
cuts and  20  Steel   Plates.      2   vols. 
Fcj.  Bvo.,  I2J. 
Roget.-THES  AURUS  OF  EnglishWords 
AND    Phrases.     Classified    and    Ar- 
ranged so  as  to  Facilitate  the  Expression 
of  Ideas  and  assist  in  Literary  Composi- 
tion.    By  Peter  Mark  Roget,  M.D., 
F.  R.S.      Recomposed  throughout,  en- 
larged and   improved,  partly  from  the 
Author's  Notes  and  with  a  full  Index, 
by    the   Author's    Son,    John    Lewis 
Roget.     Crown  Bvo. ,  xos.  6d. 
Willich.— Popular  Tables  for  giving 
information  for  ascertaining  the  value  of 
Lifehold,  Leasehold,  and  Church  Pro- 
perty,   the    Public    Funds,     &c.      By 
Charles  M.  Willich.    Edited  by  H. 
Bence  Jones.     Crown  Bvo. ,  xos.  6d. 


Children's  Books. 


Buckland.— Two  Little  Runaways. 
Adapted  from  the  French  of  Louis 
Desnoyers.  By  James  Buckland. 
With  no  Illustrations  by  Cecil  Aldin. 
Crown  8vo.,  6s, 

Crake  (Rev.  A.  D.). 

Edwy  the  Fair  ;  or,  the  First  Chro- 
nicle of  .^scendune.  Crown  8vo. ,  2s.6d. 

Alfgar  THE  Dane:  or.the  Second  Chro- 
nicle of  .^scendune.     Cr.  Bvo. ,  is.  6d. 

The  Rival  Heirs  :  being  the  Third 
and  Last  Chronicle  of  .^scendune. 
Crown  Bvo.,  2j.  6d. 

The  House  of  Walderne.  A  Tale 
of  the  Cloister  and  the  Forest  in  the 
Days  of  the  Barons'  Wars.  Crown 
Bvo.,  2J.  6d. 

Brian  Fitz-Count.  A  Story  of  Wal- 
lingford  Castle  and  Dorchester  Abbey. 
Crown  Bvo.,  2j.  6d. 

Henty  (G.  A.).— Edited  by. 

Yule  Logs  :  A  Story- Book  for  Boys. 
With  61  Illustrations.  Crown  Bvo., 
65. 

Yule  Tide  Yarns.  With  45  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  Bvo.,  6s. 


Lang  (Andrew)— Edited  by. 

The   Blue  Fairy  Book.      With  138 

Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo.,  6s. 
The    Red    Fairy    Book.     With  100 

Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo.,  6s. 
The  Green  Fairy  Book.    With  99 

Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo. ,  6s. 
The  Yellow  Fairy  Book.    With  104 

Illustrations.    Crown  Bvo.,  6s. 
The    Pink   Fairy  Book.     With  67 

Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo.,  6s. 
The  Blue  Poetry  Book.    With  100 

Illustrations.    Crown  Bvo.,  6s. 
The    Blue    Poetry    Book,      School 

Edition,   without  Illustrations.     Fcp. 

8vo. ,  2J.  6d. 
The  True  Story   Book.    With    66 

Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo.,  6s. 
The  Red  True  Story  Book.    With 

100  Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo,,  6s. 
The    Animal    Story    Book.     With 

67  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 
The  Red  Book  of  Animal  Stories. 

With  65  Illustrations.    Cr.  Bvo.,  6s. 
The  Arabian  Nights   Entertain- 
ments. With  66  Illustrations.  Crown 

Bvo. ,  6s. 


26   LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Children's  Books — continued. 


Meade  (L.  T.). 

Daddy's  Boy.  With  8  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.,  y.  6d. 

Deb  and  the  Duchess.  With  7  Illus- 
trations.    Crown  Bvo.,  35.  6d. 

The  Beresford  Prize.  With  7  Illus- 
tions.     Crown  8vo. ,  -^s.  6d. 

The  House  of  Surprises.  With  6 
Illustrations.     Crown  Bvo.,  y.  td. 

Praeger  (Rosamond). 

The  Adventures  of  the  Three 
Bold  Babes  :  Hector,  Honoria  and 
Alisander.  A  Story  in  Pictures.  With 
24  Coloured  Plates  and  24  Outline 
Pictures.     Oblong  4to.,  3^.  6d. 

The  Further  Doings  of  the  Three 
Bold  Babes.  With  24  Coloured 
Plates  and  24  Outline  Pictures.  Ob- 
long 4to. ,  3 J.  dd. 


Stevenson.— A  Child's  Garden  of 
Verses.  By  Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 
fcp.  8vo.,  sj. 

Upton  (Florence  K.,  and  Bertha). 

The  Adventures  of  Two  Dutch 
Dolls  and  a  '  Golliwogg  '.  With 
31  Coloured  Plates  and  numerous 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Oblong 
4to.,  6j. 

The  Golliwogg's  Bicycle  Club. 
With  31  Coloured  Plates  and 
numerous  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Oblong  4to.,  ds. 

The  Golliwogg  at  the  Seaside. 
With  31  Coloured  Plates  and 
numerous  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Oblong  4to. ,  6j. 

The  Golliwogg  in  War.  With  31 
Coloured  Plates.    Oblong  4to. ,  6s. 

The  Vege-Men's  Revenge.  With  31 
Coloured  Plates  and  numerous  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.     Oblong  4to.,  dr. 


The  Silver  Library. 

Crown  8vo.    35.  6^.  each  Volume. 


Arnold's  (Sir  Edwin)  Seas  and  Lands. 

With  71  Illustrations.     3^.  dd. 

Bagehot's  (W.)  Biographical    Studies. 

3J.  6d. 
Bagehot's(W.)  Economic  Studies.  3^.  dd. 

Bagehot's  (W.)  Literary  Studies.  With 
Portrait.     3  vols.     35.  dd.  each. 

Baker's  (Sir  S.  W.)  Eight  Years  In 
Ceylon.    With  6  Illustrations.     35.  dd. 

Baker's  (Sir  S.  W.)  Rifle  and  Hound  in 
Ceylon.    With  6  Illustrations.    35.  dd. 

Baring-Gould's  (ReY.  S.)  Curious  Myths 
of  the  Middle  Ages.    3J.  dd. 

Baring-Gould's  (Rev.  S.)  Origin  and 
Development  of  Religious  Belief.  2 
vols.     "is.  dd.  each. 

Becker's  (W.  A.)  Gallus :  or,  Roman 
Scenes  in  the  Time  of  Augustus.  With 
26  Illustrations,     y.  dd. 

Becker's  (W.  A.)  Charicles :  or,  Illustra- 
tions of  the  Private  Life  of  the  Ancient 
Greeks.  With  26  Illustrations.    35.  dd. 

Bent's  (J.  T.)  The  Ruined  Cities  of  Ma- 
shonaland.  With  117  Illustrations. 
y.  dd. 


Brassey's  (Lady)  A  Voyage  in  the  <  Sun 

beam  '.  With  66  Illustrations,  y.  dd 
Churchill's  (W.  S.)  The   Story  of  the 

Malakand  Field  Force,  1897.     With  6 

Maps  and  Plans,    y.  dd. 
Clodd's  (E.)  Story  of  Creation  :   a  Plain 

Account  of  Evolution.     With  jj  Illus- 
trations.    3J.  dd. 
Conybeare  (Rev.  W.  J.)  and  Howson's 

(Very  Rev.  J.  S.)  Life  and  Epistles  of 

St.  Paul.  With  46  Illustrations.  3^.  dd. 
Dougall's(L.)Beggars All; aNovel.  y.dd. 
Doyle's  (A.  Conan)  Micah  Clarke.  A  Tale 

of  Monmouth's  Rebellion.     With  lo 

Illustrations.     3^.  dd. 
Doyle's  (A.  Conan)  The  Captain  of  the 

Polestar,  and  other  Tales,     y.  dd. 
Doyle's  (A.  Conan)   The  Refugees  :   A 

Tale  of  the  Huguenots.      With  25 

Illustrations,     y.  dd. 
Doyle's  (A.  Conan)  The  Stark  Munro 

Letters,    y.  dd. 
Froude's  (J.  A.)  The  History  of  England, 

from  the  Fall  of  Wolsey  to  the  Defeat 

of   the  Spanish   Armada.     12    vob- 

y.  dd.  each. 


LONGMAI^S  AND  CO.  S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WOR/^S.    27 


The  Silver  Library — continued. 

Froude's  (J.  A.)  The  English  in  Ireland.  I 


3  vols.     loj.  6rf. 
Froude's  (J.  A.)  The  Divorce  of  Catherine 

of  Aragon.    3^.  6d. 
Froude's  (J.  A.)  The  Spanish  Story  of 

the  Armada, and  other  Essays.   35.  6d. 
Froude's  (J.  A.)  Short  Studies  on  Great 

Subjects.    4  vols.     3^.  td.  each. 
Froude's   (J.  A.)   Oceana,  or  England 

and  Her  Colonies.    With  9  Illustra- 
tions,    35.  (id. 
Froude's  (J.  A.)  The  Council  of  Trent. 

3^.  dd. 
Froude's   (J.  A.)  The  Life  and  Letters 

of  Erasmus.    3^.  6d. 
Froude's   (J.    A.)  Thomas    Carlyle:    a 

History  of  his  Life. 

1795-1835.     2  vols.     yj. 

1834-1881.     2  vols.     'JS. 
Froude's  (J.  A.)  Csesar :  a  Sketch.    3J.  dd. 
Froude's  (J.  A.)  The  Two  Chiefs  of  Dun- 
boy:  an  Irish  Romance  of  the  Last 

Century.     3J.  6d. 
Gleig's  (Rev.  G.  R.)  Life  of  the  Duke  of 

Wellington.     With  Portrait.     3^.  6d. 
Greville's   (C.   C.   F.)    Journal   of  the 

Reigns  of    King    George    lY.,    King 

William    lY.,   and   Queen    Yictoria. 

8  vols,  3J.  td.  each. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  She:  A  History  of 

Adventure.       With    32    Illustrations. 

3J.  dd. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)    Allan   Quatermain. 

With  20  Illustrations.     35-.  (id. 
Haggard's  (H.    R.)    Colonel    Quaritch, 

V.C.  :  a  Tale  of  Country  Life.     With 

Frontispiece  and  Vignette.     3J.  6d. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Cleopatra.      With  29 

Illustrations.     3J.  6d. 
Haggard's    (H.    R.)    Eric    Brighteyes. 

With  51  Illustrations.     35.  6d. 
Haggard's    (H.    R.)    Beatrice.      With 

Frontispiece  and  Vignette.      35.  6rf. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Allan's  Wife.    With 

34  Illustrations.     35.  6d. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Heart  of  the  World. 

With  15  Illustrations.     35-.  dd. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Montezuma's  Daugh- 
ter.   With  25  Illustrations.     3^.  6d. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  The  Witch's  Head. 

With  16  Illustrations,     y.  6d. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Mr.  Meeson's  Will. 

With  16  Illustrations.     3^.  6d. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Nada  the  Lily.    With 

23  Illustrations,     y.  6d. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Dawn.    With  16  Illus- 
trations.    3J.  6d. 
Haggard's  (H.  R.)  The  People  of  the  Mist.  I 

Witli  16  Illustrntions.     3V.  6d,  | 


Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Joan  Haste.  With 
20  Illustrations,     y.  6d. 

Haggard  (H.  R.)  and  Lang's  (A.)  The 
World's  Desire.  With  27  Illus.  3J.  6d. 

Harte's  (Bret)  In  the  Carquinez  Woods, 
and  other  Stories.    3^.  6d. 

Helmholtz's  (Hermann  von)  Popular  Lec- 
tures on  Scientific  Subjects.  With  68 
Illustrations.     2  vols.    y.  6d.  each, 

Hornung's  (E.  W.)  The  Unbidden  Guest. 
3J.  6d. 

Howitt's  (W.)  Yisits  to  Remarkable 
Places.    With  80  Illustrations,    3.?.  6d, 

Jefferies'(R.)The  Story  of  My  Heart:  My 
Autobiography,  With  Portrait,  35.  6d. 

JefFeries'  (R.)  Field  and  Hedgerow. 
With  Portrait,     y.  6d. 

JelTeries'  (R.)  Red  Deer.  17  Illus.   y.  6d. 

Jefferies'  (R.)  Wood  Magic:  a  Fable. 
With  Frontispiece  and  Vignette  by 
E.  V.  B.     3^.  6d. 

Jefferies'  (R.)  The  Toilers  of  the  Field. 
With  Portrait  from  the  Rust  in  Salis- 
bury Cathedral.     3J,  6d. 

Kaye  (Sir  J.)  and  Malleson's  (Colonel) 
History  of  the  Indian  Mutiny  of 
1857-8.     6  vols.     y.  6d.  each, 

Knight's(E.  F.)The  Cruise  of  the  <  Alerte ' : 
the  Narrative  of  a  Search  for  Treasure 
on  the  Desert  Island  of  Trinidad. 
With  2  Maps  and  23  Illustrations. 
3s.  6d. 

Knight's  (E.  F.)  Where  Three  Empires 
Meet :  a  Narrative  of  Recent  Travel  in 
Kashmir,  Western  Tibet,  Baltistan, 
Gilgit.  With  a  Map  and  54  Illustra- 
tions,   35.  6d 

Knight's  (E.  F.)  The  'Falcon'  on  the 
Baltic  :  a  Coasting  Voyage  from 
Hammersmith  to  Copenhagen  in  a 
Three-Ton  Yacht.  With  Map  and 
II  Illustrations,     y.  6d. 

Kostlin's  (J.)  Life  of  Luther.  With  62 
Illustrations  and  4  Facsimiles  of  MSS. 
3s.  6d. 

Lang's  (A.)  Angling  Sketches.  With 
20  Illustrations,     35,  6d. 

Lang's  (A.)  Custom  and  Myth  :  Studies 
of  Early  Usage  and  Belief,     y.  6d. 

Lang's  (A.)  Cock  Lane  and  Common- 
Sense,     y.  6d. 

Lang's  (A.)  The  Book  of  Dreams  and 
Ghosts,    y.  6d. 

Lang's  (A.)  A  Monk  of  Fife:  a  Story  of 
the  Days  of  Joan  of  Arc.  With  13 
Illustrations,     y.  6d. 

Lang's  (A.)  Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion. 
2  vols.     JS. 


28   LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


The  Silver  Library— <r^«//>^m/. 


Lees  (J.  A.)and  Clutterbuck's  (W.J.)B.C. 

1887,  A  Ramble  in  British  Columbia. 

With  Maps  and  75  Illustrations.  35.  6d. 
Levett- Yeats'     (S.)      The      Chevalier 

D'Auriac.    y.  6d. 
Macaulay's    (Lord)    Complete    Works. 

'  Albany '  Edition.    With  12  Portraits. 

12  vols,     3 J.  6d.  each. 
Macaulay's  (Lord)  Essays  and  Lays  of 

Ancient  Rome,  etc.     With   Portrait 

and  4  Illustrations  to   the    '  Lays '. 

y.  6d. 
Macleod's  (H.  D.)  Elements  of  Bank- 
ing.   3J.  6d. 
Marbot's  (Baron  de)  Memoirs.    Trans- 
lated.    2  vols,     75. 
Marshraan's(J.  C.)  Memoirs  of  Sir  Henry 

Havelock.     35.  6d. 
Meri  vale's  (Dean)  History  of  the  Romans 

under  the  Empire.    8  vols.    y.  6d.  ea. 
Merriman's  (H.  S.)  Flotsam  :  a  Tale  of 

the  Indian  Mutiny.     35.  6d. 
Mill's  (J.  S.)  Political  Economy.    3^.  Sd. 
Mill's  (J.  S.)  System  of  Logic.    3^.  6d. 
Milner's  (Geo.)  Country  Pleasures :  the 

Chronicle  of  a  Year  chiefly  in  a  Gar- 
den.   35.  6d. 
Hansen's  (F.)  The    First   Crossing  of 

Greenland.      With   142   Illustrations 

and  a  Map.     y.  6d. 
Phillipps-Wolley's (C.)  Snap:  a  Legend 

of  the  Lone  Mountain,      With    13 

Illustrations,     y.  6d. 
'Proctor's  (R.  A.)  The  Orbs  Around  Us. 

3.J.  6d. 
Proctor's  (R.  A.)  The  Expanse  of  Heaven. 

3s.6d. 
Proctor's    (R.  A.)    Light    Science   for 

Leisure  Hours.    First  Series.    3^.  6d. 
Proctor's  (R.  A.)  The  Moon.    y.  6d. 
Proctor's  (R.   A.)   Other  Worlds   than 

Ours.    y.  6d. 


Proctor's  (R.  A.)  Our  Place  among  Infi- 
nities :  a  Series  of  Essays  contrasting 
our  Little  Abode  in  Space  and  Time 
with  the  Infinities  around  us.     3^.  6d. 

Proctor's  (R.  A.)  Other  Suns  than 
Ours.     3^.  6d. 

Proctor's  (R.  A.)  Rough  Ways  made 
Smooth.    3^.  6d. 

Proctor's  (R.  A.)  Pleasant  Ways  in 
Science.    3^.  6d. 

Proctor's  (R.  A.)  Myths  and  Marvels 
of  Astronomy,     y.  6d. 

Proctor's  (R.  A.)  Nature  Studies,    y.  6d. 

Proctor's  (R.  A.)  Leisure  Readings.  By 
R.  A.  Proctor,  Edward  Clodd, 
Andrew  Wilson,  Thomas  Foster, 
and  A.  C.  Ranyard.  With  Illustra- 
tions,    y.  6d. 

Rossetti 's  (Maria  F.)  A  Shadow  of  Dante. 
3J.  6d. 

Smith's  (R.  Bosworth)  Carthage  and  the 
Carthaginians.  With  Maps,  Plans, 
&c.     y.  6d. 

Stanley's  (Bishop)  Familiar  History  of 
Birds.   With  160  Illustrations,    y.  6d. 

Stephen's  (L.)  The  Playground  of 
Europe  (The  Alps).  With  4  Illustra- 
tions,    y.  6d. 

Stevenson's  (R.  L.)  The  Strange  Case  of 
Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde ;  with  other 
Fables.     3^.  6d. 

Stevenson  (R.  L.)  and  Osbourne's  (LI.) 
The  Wrong  Box.    35.  6d. 

Stevenson  (Robt.  Louis)  and  Stevenson's 
(Fanny  van  de  Grift)More  New  Arabian 
Nights,  —  The   Dynamiter.     3.?.  6d. 

Trevelyan's  (Sir  G.  0. )  The  Early  History 
of  Charles  James  Fox.     3^.  6d. 

Weyman's  (Stanley  J.)  The  House  of 
the  Wolf:  a  Romance,     3.?,  6d. 

Wood's  (Rev.  J.  G.)  Petland  Revisited. 
With  33  Illustrations,     y.  6d. 

Wood's  (Rev.  J.  G.)  Strange  Dwellings. 
With  60  Illustrations.     3^.  6d. 

Wood's  (Rev.  J.  G.)  Out  of  Doors.  With 
II  Illustrations.     3^.  6d. 


Acton.- 

ACTON. 
"SVO.,  AS. 


Cookery,  Domestic 

Modern  Cookery.  By  Eliza 
With  150  Woodcuts.  Fcp. 
6d. 


Management,  &c. 


Ashby.— Health  in  the  Nursery. 
By  Henry  Ashby,  M.D.,  F.R.CP., 
Physician  to  the  Manchester  Children's 
Hospital,  and  Lecturer  on  the  Diseases 
of  Children  at  the  Owens  College. 
With  25  Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  y.  6d. 


Buckton.— Comfort  and  Cleanli- 
ness :  The  Servant  and  Mistress 
Question.  By  Mrs,  Catherine  M. 
Buckton.  With  14  Illustrations. 
Crown   8vo.,   2J, 

Bull  (ThOxMas,  M.D,), 
Hints  to  Mothers  on  the  Manage- 
ment of  their  Health  during 
the  Period  of  Pregnancy,    Fcp. 
8vo.,  IS.  6d. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORK'S.     29 


Cookery,  Domestic  Management,  ka.— continued. 


Bull  (Thomas,  M.'D.)— continued. 
The    Maternal   Management   of 
Children  in  Health  and  Disease. 
Fcp.  8vo.,  i.f.  6d. 

De  Salis  (Mrs.). 
Cakes  and  Confections  a  la  Mode. 

Fcp.  8vo.,  IS.  6d. 
Dogs:  a  Manual  for  Amateurs.     Fcp. 

8vo.,  I  J.  6d. 
Dressed  Game  and  Poultry  X  la 

Mode.     Fcp.  Svo.,  u.  6d. 
Dressed  Vegetables  a  la  Mode. 

Fcp.  Svo.,  I  J.  6d. 
Drinks  X  la  Mode.  Fcp.  Svo.,  is.  td. 
Entrees  X  la  Mode.  Fcp.  Svo. ,  xs.  6d. 
Floral  Decorations.  Fcp.  Svo. ,  xs.  6d. 
Gardening  a  la  Mode.      Fcp.  Svo. 

Pai-t  I.     Vegetables,     xs.  6d. 

Part  II.     Fruits,     xs.  bd. 
National  Viands  X  la  Mode.    Fcp. 

Svo. ,  i^.  6d. 
New-laid  Eggs.     Fcp.  Svo.,  is.  6d. 
Oysters  X  la  Mode.    Fcp.  Svo. ,  is.  6d. 
Soups  and  Dressed  Fish  X  la  Mode. 

Fcp.  Svo.,  IS.  6d. 
Savouries  X  la  Mode.  Fcp.  Svo. ,  xs.  6d. 
Puddings  and  Pastry  a  la  Mode. 

Fcp.  Svo.,  IS.  6d. 


De  Salis  (Mrs.) — continued. 
Sweets  and  Supper  Dishes  X  la 

Mode.     Fcp.  Svo.,  xs.  6d. 
Tempting    Dishes   for    Small    In- 
comes.   Fcp.  Svo.,  xs.  6d. 
Wrinkles  and  Notions  for  Every 
Household.    Cr.  Svo. ,  xs.  6d. 
Lear.— Maigre  Cookery.    By  H.  L. 

Sidney  Lear.     i6mo.,  2j. 
Mann.— Manual  of  the  Principles 
OF  Practical  Cookery.     By  E.  E. 
Mann.     Crown  Svo.,  ij. 
Poole.— Cookery  for  the  Diabetic. 
By  W.   H.   and   Mrs.    Poole.     With 
Preface  by  Dr.  Pavy.   Fcp.  Svo.,  zs.  6d 
Walker  (Jane  H.). 
A  Book  for  Every  Woman. 

Part  I.     The  Management  of  Children 
in  Health  and  out  of  Health.     Cr. 
Svo.,  2s.  bd. 
Part  II.     Woman  in  Health  and  out 
of  Health.     Crown  Svo,  -ls.  6d. 
A  Handbook  for  Mothers:   being 
Simple    Hints    to  Women    on     the 
Management  of  their  Health  during 
Pregnancy  and  Confinement,  together 
with  Plain  Directions  as  to  the  Care 
of  Infants.     Cr.  Svo.,  2s.  6d. 


Miscellaneous  and  Critical  Works. 


Armstrong.— Essays  and  Sketches. 

By  Edmund  J.  Armstrong.  Fcp.Svo.,sj. 
Bagehot.— Literary    Studies.      By 

Walter  Bagehot.      With    Portrait. 

3  vols.      Crown  Svo. ,  3.^  6d.  each. 
Baring-Gould.— Curious  Myths  of 

THE    Middle    Ages.       By    Rev.    S. 

Baring-Gould.     Crown  Svo.,  3^.  6d. 
Baynes.— Shakespeare  Studies,  and 

Other  Essays.    By  the  late  Thomas 

Spencer      Baynes,     LL.B.,     LL.D. 

With  a  Biographical  Preface   by  Prof. 

Lewis  Campbell.    Crown  Svo. ,  7s.  bd. 
Boyd  (A.  K.  H.)    C  A.K:.H.B.'). 

And  see  MISCELLANEOUS  THEOLO- 
GICAL WORKS,  p.  32. 

Autumn  Holidays  of  a  Country 
Parson.     Crown  Svo. ,  35.  6d. 

Commonplace  Philosopher.  Crown 
Svo. ,  3J.  6d. 

Critical  Essays  of  a  Country 
Parson.     Crown  Svo. ,  y.  6d. 

East  Coast  Days  and  Memories. 
Crown  Svo. ,  y.  6d. 

Landscapes,  Churches  and  Mora- 
lities.    Crown  Svo. ,  3^.  6d. 

Leisure  Hours  in  Town.  Crown 
8vo. ,  y.  67. 


Boyd   (A.    K.    H.)      ('A.K.H.B.')- 

continued. 

LessonsofMiddle Age.  Cr.Svo., 3^.6^. 

Our  Little  Life.     Two  Series.    Cr. 

Svo. ,  3J.  6d.  each. 
Our  Homely  Comedy:  andTragedy. 

Crown  Svo.,  y.  td. 
Recreations  of  a  Country  Parson. 

Three  Series.     Cr.  Svo.,  y.  td.  each. 

Butler  (Samuel). 

Erewhon.     Cr.  Svo.,  5^. 

The  Fair  Haven.   A  Work  in  Defence 

of  the    Miraculous    Element   in   our 

Lord's  Ministry.     Cr.  Svo.,  'js.  td. 
Life  and  Habit.      An  Essay  after  a 

Completer  View  of  Evolution.      Cr. 

Svo.,  'JS.  td. 
Evolution,  Old  and  New.    Cr.  Svo., 

loj.  td. 
Alps  and  Sanctuaries  of  Piedmont 

AND  Canton  Ticino.     Illustrated. 

Pott  4to.,  xos.td. 
Luck,  or  Cunning,  as  the  Main 

Means  of  Organic  Modification? 

Cr.  8vo.,  JS.  td. 
Ex   VoTO.    An  Account  of  the  Sacro 

Monte  or  New  Jerusalem  at  Varalto- 

Se^'a.     Crown  Svo.,  xos.  td. 


30   LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Miscellaneous  and  Critical  Yiovks— continued. 


Butler  [Smaxjkl.)— continued. 
Selections  from  Works,  with  Re- 
marks on  Mr.  G.  J.  Romanes'  'Mental 
Evolution  in  Animals,'  and  a  Psalm 
of  Montreal.     Crown  8vo.,  yj.  6d. 
The  Authoress  of   the   Odyssey, 

WHERE  AND  WHEN  ShE  WROTE,  WHO 

She  was,  the  Use  She  made  of 
THE  Iliad,  and  how  the  Poem 

GREW  UNDER  HER  HANDS.     With  14 

Illustrations.  8vo.,  los,  6d. 
The  Iliad  of  Homer.  Rendered  into 
Euglish  Prose  for  the  use  of  those  who 
cannot  read  the  original.  Crown  8vo., 
js.  6d. 
Shakespeare's  Sonnets.  Recon- 
sidered, and  in  part  Rearranged,  with 
Introductory  Chapters  and  a  Reprint 
of  the  Original  1609  Edition.     8vo. 

Calder.— Accident  in  Factories  :  its 
Distribution,  Causation,  Compensation, 
and  Prevention.  A  Practical  Guide  to 
the  Law  and  to  the  Safe-Guarding,  Safe- 
Working,  and  Safe-Construction  of 
Factory  Machinery,  Plant, and  Premises. 
With  20  Tables  and  124  Illustrations. 
By  John  Calder. 

CHARITIES  REGISTER,  THE  AN- 
NUAL, AND  DIGEST:  being  a 
Classified  Register  of  Charities  in  or 
available  in  the  Metropolis.  With  an 
Introduction  by  C.  S.  Loch,  Secretary 
to  the  Council  of  the  Charity  Organi- 
sation Society,  London.     Bvo. ,  4s. 

Comparetti.  —  The  Traditional 
Poetry  of  the  Finns.  By  Domenico 
Comparetti.  Translated  by  Isabella 
M,  Anderton.  With  Introduction  by 
Andrew  Lang.    8vo.,  i6s. 

Evans.— The  Ancient  Stone  Imple- 
ments, Weapons,  and  Ornaments 
of  Great  Britain.  By  Sir  John 
Evans,  K.C.B.,  D.C.L.,  LL.D., 
F.R.S.,  etc.  With  537  Illustrations. 
Medium  8vo.,  28^. 

Haggard.— A  Farmers'  Year  :  being 
his  Commonplace  Book  for  1898.  By 
H.  Rider  Haggard.  With  36  Illus- 
trations by  C.  Leon  Little.  Crown 
8vo.,  7s.  6d.  net. 

Hamlin.— A  Text-Book  of  the  His- 
tory OF  Architecture.  By  A.  D.  F. 
Hamlin,  A.M.  With  229  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.,  ys.  6d. 

Haweis. — Music  and  Morals.  By  the 
Rev.  H.  R.  Haweis.  With  Portrait  of 
the  Author,  and  numerous  Illustrations, 
Facsimiles  and  Diagrams.  Cr.8vo.,7-v.6(/, 


Hodgson.  —  Outcast    Essays    and 
Verse    Translations.      By    Shad- 
worth  H.  Hodgson,  LL.D.     Crown 
8vo.,  8s.  6d. 
Hoenig.— Inquiries  concerning  the 
Tactics    of    the  Future.      Fourth 
Edition,  1894,  of  the  '  Two  Brigades '. 
By  Fritz  Hoenig.      With  i  Sketch  in 
the  Text  and  5  Maps.     Translated  by 
Captain  H.  M.  Bovver.    8vo.,  ie,s.  net. 
Hullah.— The  History  of  Modern 
Music.  By  John  Hullah.  8vo.,8s.6d 
Jefferies  (Richard). 
Field  and  Hedgerow.      With  Por- 
trait.    Crown  8vo. ,  y.  6d. 
The  Story  op  My  Heart  :  my  Auto- 
biography.    With  Portrait  and  New 
Preface  by  C.  J.  Longman.     Crown 
8vo. ,  y.  6d. 
Red    Deer.      With    17    Illustrations. 

Crown  8vo.,  y.  6d. 
The  Toilers  of  the  Field.     With 
Portrait  from  the   Bust  in  Salisbury 
Cathedral.     Crown  8vo. ,  3J.  6d. 
Wood  Magic  :  a  Fable.    With  Frontis- 
piece and  Vignette  by  E.  V.  B.     Cr. 
8vo.,  y.  6d. 
JekylL— Wood  and  Garden:   Notes 
and  Thoughts,   Practical  and  Critical, 
of  a  Working  Amateur.    By  Gertrude 
Jekyll.     71  Illustrations  from  Photo- 
graphs by  the  Author.   8vo. ,  105.  6d.  net. 
Johnson.— The  Patentee's  Manual: 
a  Treatise  on  the  Law  and  Practice  of 
Letters  Patent.     By  J.  &  J.  H.  John- 
son, Patent  Agents,  &c.     8vo. ,  10s.  6d. 
Joyce.— The  Origin  and  History  of 
Irish  Names  of  Places.     By  P.  W. 
Joyce,    LL.D.      2  vols.      Crown  Bvo., 
55.  each. 
Kingsley.— A    History  of   French 
Art,  1 100-1899.    By  Rose  C.  Kings- 
ley.     8vo.,  I2S.  6d.  net. 
Lang  (Andrew). 
Letters  to  Dead  Authors.     Fcp. 

8vo.,  2S.  6d.  net. 
Books     and    Bookmen.      With     2 
Coloured  Plates  and  17  Illustrations. 
Fcp.  8vo. ,  2.f.  6d.  net. 
Old  Friends.     Fcp.  8vo.,  2s.  6d.  net. 
Letters  on  Literature.    Fcp.  8vo., 

2s.  6d.  net. 
Essays  in  Little.    With  Portrait  of 

the  Author.     Crown  8vo. ,  2s.  6d. 
Cock    Lane    and    Common-Sense. 

Crown  8vo. ,  3^.  6d. 
The  Book  of  Dreams  and  Ghosts. 
Crown  8vo. ,  6s. 
Macfarr en.— Lectures  on  Harmony. 
By  Sir  G.  A.   Macfarren.    8vo.,  12J, 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.    31 


Miscellaneous  and  Critical  Yiovks— continued. 


Marquand  and  Frothingham.— A 

Text-Book  of  the  History  of 
Sculpture.  By  Allan  Marquand, 
Ph.D.,  and  Arthur  L.  Frothingham, 
Junr.,  Ph.D.,  Professors  of  Archasology 
and  the  History  of  Art  in  Princetown 
University.  With  113  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.,  6^^. 
Max  Miiller  (The  Right  Hon.  F.). 
India  :  What  can  it  Teach  Us  ?  Cr. 

8vo.,  5^. 
Chips  from  a  German  Workshop. 
Vol.  I.  Recent  Essays  and  Addresses. 

Cr.  8vo.,  SJ. 
Vol.   II.     Biographical  Essays.     Cr. 

8vo.,  5J. 
Vol.    III.    Essays  on  Language  and 

Literature.     Cr.  8vo..  $s. 
Vol.  IV.    Essays  on  Mythology  and 
Folk  Lore.    Crown  8vo. ,  5J. 
Contributions  to  the  Science  of 
Mythology.    2  vols.    8vo.,  32J. 
Milner.  —  Country  Pleasures  :   the 
Chronicle  of  a  Year  chiefly  in  a  Garden. 
By  George  Milner.    Cr.  Svc,  y.  6d. 
Morris  (William). 
Signs  of  Change.      Seven  Lectures 
delivered  on  various  occasions.     Post 
8vo.,  4^.  6d. 
Hopes  and  Fears  for  Art.  Five  Lec- 
tures delivered  in  Birmingham,  Lon- 
don, etc.,  1878-1881.    Cr.  8vo.,  4J.  6d. 
An  Address  Delivered  at  the  Dis- 
'     tribution  of  Prizes  to  Students 
of  the    Birmingham    Municipal 
School  of  Art  on  2ist  February, 
1894.     8vo.,  2s.  6d.  net. 
Art  and  the  Beauty  of  the  Earth  : 
a  Lecture  delivered  at  Burslem  Town 
Hall,   on  October   13,    1881.      8vo., 
2s.  6d.  net. 
Arts  and  Crafts  Essays.     By  Mem- 
bers of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Exhibition 
Society.    With  a  Preface  by  William 
Morris.     Crown  8vo. ,  2s.  6d.  net. 
Some    Hints   on    Pattern-Design- 
ing :  a  Lecture  delivered  by  William 
Morris  at  the  Working  Men's  Col- 
lege, London,  on  December  10,  1881. 
8vo.,  2J.  6d.  net. 
Pollock.— Jane    Austen:    her    Con- 
temporaries and  Herself.     An  Essay  in 
Criticism.    By  Walter  Hekries  Pol- 
lock.    Crown  8vo. 
Poore(GEORGE  Vivian,  M.D.,F.R.C.P.). 
Essays  on  Rural  Hygiene.    With  13 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s.  6d. 

The    Dwelling    House.      With    36 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo,,  35.  6d. 

Richmond.  —  Boyhood  :    a   Plea  for 

Continuity  in   Education.      By   Ennjs 

Richmond.    Crown  8vo.,  2j.  6i/. 


Biehter.  —  Lectures  on  the  Na- 
tional Gallery.  By  J.  P.  Richtkk. 
With  20  Plates  and  7  Illustrations  in  the 
Text.     Crown  410. ,  gs. 

Rossetti.— A  Shadow  of  Dante  :  be- 
ing an  Essay  towards  studying  Himself, 
his  World,  and  his  Pilgrimage.  By 
Maria  Francesca  Rossetti.  With 
Frontispiece  by  Dante  Gabriel  Ros- 
setti.    Crown  8vo.,  3J.  6d. 

Shad  well.  —  The  London  Water 
Supply.  By  Arthur  Shadwell, 
M.A.,  M.B.Oxon.,Member  of  the  Royal 
College  of  Physicians.     Crown  8vo. ,  $s. 

Soulsby  (Lucy  H.  M.). 
Stray  Thoughts  on  Reading.  Small 

8vo.,  2s.  6d.  net. 
Stray  Thoughts  for  Girls.    i6mo., 

IS.  6d.  net. 
Stray  Thoughts  for  Mothers  and 

Teachers.     Fcp.  8vo.,  2s.  6d.  net. 
Stray    Thoughts    for     Invalids. 
i6mo.,  2s.  net. 

Southey.~THE  Correspondence  of 
Robert  Southey  with  Caroline 
Bowles.  Edited,  with  an  Introduction, 
by  Edward  Dov^den,  LL.  D.  8vo.  ,  i^s. 

Stevens.— On  the  Stowage  of  Ships 
AND  their  Cargoes.  With  Informa- 
tion regarding  Freights,  Charter-Parties, 
&c.  By  Robert  White  Stevens, 
Associate-Member  of  the  Institute  of 
Naval  Architects.     8vo.,  2ts. 

Turner  and  Sutherland.  —  The 
Development  of  Australian  Liter- 
ature. By  Henry  Gyles  Turner 
and  Alexander  Sutherland.  With 
Portraits  and  Illustrations.    Cr.  8vo. ,  y. 

Van  Dyke.— A  Text-Book  on  the 
History  of  Painting.  By  John  C. 
Van  Dyke,  Professor  of  the  History  of 
Art  in  Rutgers  College,  U.S.  With 
no  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo. ,  6^. 

Warwick.- Progress  in  Women's 
Education  in  the  British  Empire  : 
being  the  Report  of  Conferences  and  a 
Congress  held  in  connection  with  the 
Educational  Section,  Victorian  Era  Ex- 
hibition. Edited  by  the  Countess  of 
Warwick.     Crown  8vo.  ,  6j. 

White.— An  Examination  of  the 
Charge  of  Apostacy  against 
Wordsworth.  By  W.  Hale  White, 
Editor  of  the  '  Description  of  the  Words- 
worth and  Coleridge  MSS.  in  the  Pos- 
session of  Mr.  T.  "Norton  Longman '. 
Crown  8vo. ,  35-.  6d. 

Willard.  —  History  of  Modern 
Italian  Art.  By  Ashton  Rollins 
Willard.  With  Photogravure  Frontis- 
piece and  28  Full-page  Illustrations. 
8vo.,  i8j.  net, 


32    LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Miscellaneous  Theological  Works. 

For  Church  of  England  and  Roman  Catholic  Works  see  MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  Co.'s 
Special  Catalogues. 


Balfour.— The  Foundations  of  Be- 
lief :  being  Notes  Introductory  to  the 
Study  of  Theology,  By  the  Right  Hon. 
Arthur  J.  Balfour,  M.  P.  8vo.,i2j.  dd. 
Boyd  (A.K.  H.)  C  A.K.H.B/). 
Occasional  and  Immemorial  Days  : 

Discourses.     Crown  8vo. ,  ^s.  6d. 
Counsel  and  Comfort  from  a  City 

Pulpit.     Crown  8vo.,  3^.  6d. 
Sunday  Afternoons  in  the  Parish 
Church  of  a  Scottish  University 
City.     Crown  Bvo.,  3J.  6d. 
Changed    Aspects  of  Unchanged 

Truths.     Crown  Bvo.,  y.  6d. 
Graver  Thoughts  of   a  Country 
Parson.   Three  Series.    Crown  Bvo., 
35.  6d.  each. 
Present  Day  Thoughts.  Crown  8vo. , 

y.  6d. 
Seaside  Musings.     Cr.  8vo. ,  3J.  6d. 
•To   Meet   the    Day'  through  the 
Christian  Year  ;  being  a  Text  of  Scrip- 
ture, with  an  Original  Meditation  and 
a  Short  Selection  in  Verse  for  Every 
Day.    Crown  8vo.,  45.  6d. 
Campbell.  —  Religion     in     Greek 
Literature.      By    the    Rev.    Lewis 
Campbell,    M.A.,    LL.D.,    Emeritus 
Professor  of  Greek,  University  of  St. 
Andrews.     8vo.,  155-. 
Davidson.— Theism,  as  Grounded  in 
Human  Nature,  Historically  and  Critic- 
ally   Handled.        Being    the    Burnett 
Lectures  for  1892  and  1893,  delivered  at 
Aberdeen.   By  W.  L.  Davidson,  M.A., 
LL.D.     Bvo.,  i$s. 

Gibson. — The  Abbe  de   Lamennais 
AND  THE  Liberal  Catholic  Move- 
ment IN  France.     By  the  Hon.  W. 
Gibson.    With  Portrait.    Bvo.,  i2j.  6^. 
Lang  (Andrew). 
The  Making  of  Religion.   8vo.,  izs. 
Modern  Mythology  :  a  Reply  to  Pro- 
fessor Max  Miiller.     8vo.,  gs. 
MacDonald  (George). 
Unspoken  Sermons.     Three  Series. 

Crown  Bvo.,  35.  6d.  each. 
The  Miracles  of  Our  Lord.   Crown 
Bvo. ,  3^.  6d. 
■  Martineau  (James). 

Hours    of    Thought    on    Sacred 

Things  :  Sermons.     2  Vols.    Crown 

Bvo.   3J.  6d.  each. 

Endeavours  after  the  Christian 

Life.     Discourses,     Cr.  8vo.,  js.  6d. 

50,000 — 10/99. 


Martineau  {] AMEs)—conHnued. 

The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion. 
8vo.,  I4J'. 

Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses.  4 
Vols.     Crown  Bvo. ,  7s.  6d.  each. 

Home  Prayers,  with  Two  Services  for 
Public  Worship.  Crown  Bvo.  y.  6d. 
Max  Miiller  (F.). 

The  Six  Systems  of  Indian  Phil- 
osophy.    Bvo.,  iBj. 

Contributions  to  the  Science  of 
Mythology.     2  vols.   8vo. ,  32J. 

The  Origin  and  Growth  of  Re- 
ligion, as  illustrated  by  the  Religions 
of  India.  The  Hibbert  Lectures, 
delivered  at  the  Chapter  House, 
Westminster  Abbey,  in  1878.  Crown 
Bvo.,  5^. 

Introduction  to  the  Science  of 
Religion  :  Four  Lectures  delivered  at 
the  Royal  Institution.    Cr.  Bvo.,  55. 

Natural  Religion.  The  Giflford 
Lectures,  delivered  before  the  Uni- 
versity of  Glasgow  in  1888.     Cr.  Bvo., 

Physical  Religion.  The  Gifford 
Lectures,  delivered  before  the  Uni- 
versity of  Glasgow  in  1890.    Cr.  Bvo., 

Anthropological  Religion.  The  Gif- 
ford  Lectures,   delivered    before  the 
University  of  Glasgow  in  1B91.     Cr. 
Bvo.,  5J. 
Theosophy  ;  or,  Psychological  Reli- 
gion. The  Gifford  Lectures,  delivered 
before  the  University  of  Glasgow  in 
1B92.     Cr.  8vo.,  5^. 
Three  Lectures  on  the  Vedanta 
Philosophy,  delivered  at  the  Royal 
Institution  in  March,  1894.     Bvo. ,  sj. 
Ramak/j/sha/a  :  His  Life  and  Say- 
ings. .  Crown  Bvo.,  5^. 
Romanes.— Thoughts  on  Religion. 
By    George    J.    Romanes,    LL.D., 
F.  R.  S.     Crown  Bvo. ,  4J.  6d. 
Vivekananda.— Yoga  Philosophy  : 
Lectures  delivered  in  New  York,  Winter 
of  1895-6,  by  the  SWAMI  VIVEKAN- 
ANDA, on  Raja  Yoga  ;  or.  Conquering 
the  Internal   Nature ;    also   Patanjali's 
Yoga  Aphorisms,  with  Commentaries. 
Crown  8vo.,  y.  6d. 
Williamson.  —  The   Great    Law; 
A  Study  of  Religious  Origins  and 
the  Unity  underlying  them.       By  W^ 
Williamson.    Bvo.,  14?. 


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